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PRINCETON,    N.    J. 


Shelf. 


BV  4211  .C76  1879 
Crosby,  Howard,  1826-1891 
The  Christian  preacher 


'  ^' 


THE 


CHRISTIAN    PREACHER. 


YALE    LECTURES    FOR    1879-80. 


HOWARD^  CROSBY. 


NEW  YORK; 
ANSON    D.    F.    RANDOLPH    &    COMPANY, 

900   BROADWAY,   COR.   20th   ST. 


Cor\'RIGHT,    1879,    BY 

Anson  D.  F.  Randolph  &  Company. 


Edward  O.  Jenkins, 
Printer,  20  N.  William  St.,  New  York. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  I. 

PAGB 

Introduction:  Physical  Prerequisites,    ...      7 


LECTURE  IL 
Mental  Prerequisites, 31 

LECTURE  in. 
General  Knowledge. — Argumentative  Power,        .    63 

LECTURE  IV. 
Disposition. — Manner. — Habits, 87 

LECTURE  V. 
The  Preacher's  GODWARD  Living,       .       .       ,       .119 

LECTURE  VL 
The  Preacher  and  the  World, 147 

LECTURE  VIL 
The  Preacher's  Relation  to  His  Work,     .       .       .173 


INTRODUCTION: 
PHYSICAL   PREREQUISITES. 


PJIIHCiJTOIT 


LECTURE    I. 
INTRODUCTION:    PHYSICAL   PREREQUISITES. 

In  beginning  a  course  of  lectures  on  Preaching  to 
the  Yale  Divinity  School,  I  am  fully  aware  of  the 
very  thorough  and  admirable  way  in  which  the  sub- 
ject has  been  treated  by  the  distinguished  teachers 
who  have  preceded  me  in  this  office.  Their  instruc- 
tions are  still  fresh  in  your  memory,  and  have  been 
wisely  put  into  permanency  through  the  printed 
page,  so  that  they  will  ever  form  a  valuable  portion 
of  the  apparatus  of  every  theological  seminary.  With 
this  fact  before  me,  I  deem  it  the  part  of  a  prudent 
expediency  to  treat  the  subject  rather  at  its  circum- 
ference than  at  its  center,  that  I  may  avoid  those 
details  which  have  been  so  elaborately  and  exhaust- 
ively treated.  If,  then,  I  shall  call  your  attention 
rather  to  the  Preacher  than  the  Preaching,  his  quali- 
fications, character,  manner,  and  life,  rather  than  the 
measure,  weight,  and  analysis  of  his  words,  I  trust  I 
may  be  considered  as  still  within  the  province  as- 
signed me,  and  ministering  to  the  requirements  of 
this  foundation. 

As  I  understand  the  intention  of  this  system  of 
lectures,  it  is  not  a  disquisition,  attempting  to  ex- 


8  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

haust  the  subject,  that  is  desired,  but  rather  the 
results  of  personal  observation  and  experience  in  a 
long  course  of  pastoral  years,  the  view  taken  by  one 
man  from  his  own  peculiar  position,  whatever  may 
be  the  constituents  of  the  peculiarity.  I  also  under- 
stand that  the  lectures  are  addressed  to  students  in 
divinity,  and  not  to  those  equally  experienced  with 
the  lecturer,  that  they  are  not  condones  ad  clerum, 
but  monitiones  ad  discipulos. 

With  these  two  thoughts  to  guide  me,  I  shall 
indulge  in  nothing  of  an  abstract  or  investigational 
character,  and  doubtless  shall  say  much  that  is  fa- 
miliar to  all.  This  lectureship  was  not  designed  as 
an  arena  where  emulating  sages  should  show  their 
prowess,  but  as  an  opportunity  for  counsel  and  ad- 
vice from  veterans  to  the  new  recruits ;  and  with  the 
deep  interest  and  affection  that  such  a  relation  be- 
speaks, and  a  due  sense  of  the  responsibility  involved, 
I  trust  I  may  have  grace  to  address  you. 

As  preliminary  to  this  course  of  thought,  I  would 
essay  to  correct  some  common  errors  in  the  use  of 
words,  which  have  much  influence  in  forming  current 
ideas  and  establishing  false  conclusions. 

The  words  I  refer  to  are  "altar,"  "priest,"  and 
"  sanctuary,"  or  "  house  of  God."  I  can  not  but 
think  that  a  careless  use  of  these  words  has  been 
a  prolific  source  of  evil  not  only  in  theology,  but  in 
the  practical  Christian  life.     We  have  been  carried 


INTRODUCTION :  PHYSICAL  PREREQUISITES,      c) 

back  to  the  nonage  of  the  Church,  and  have  re- 
nounced the  bright  noon  of  the  Gospel  revelation 
for  the  early  typical  twilight,  in  Avhich  the  great 
truths  regarding  Christ  but  flit  as  shadowy  ghosts. 

None  of  these  words  occur  in  the  Scriptures  as 
referring  to  the  Church  of  Christ  and  its  order,  in 
any  such  sense  as  they  are  applied  to  the  Mosaic 
Church.  The  altar,  in  the  only  passage  where  the 
word  is  used  in  relation  to  the  Christian  Church 
(Heb.  xiii.  lo),  is  Christ  Himself;  the  priest  of  the 
New  Testament  is  the  individual  Christian  (the  High- 
Priest  being  Christ),  and  the  "  house  of  God  "  is  the 
entire  spiritual  Church,  known  by  another  figure  as 
the  body  of  Christ.  The  old  dispensation  thus  re- 
ceives a  spiritual  interpretation  in  the  new.  Its  types 
are  fulfilled  and  have  no  succession. 

All  that  remains  is  the  eKKXrjGLa,  with  its  officers  of 
government  and  instruction,  the  synagogue  portion  of 
Israel,  the  temple  portion  having  been  absorbed  in  the 
antitypes.  That  synagogue  portion  we  see  existing 
from  the  beginning  of  the  Mosaic  dispensation,  having 
its  full  development  from  the  first.  Before  the  awful 
rock  of  Sinai,  when  the  ritual  was  formed  and  was 
about  to  be  put  into  operation,  we  hear  this  com- 
mand from  the  Most  High  to  His  servant  Moses, 
ITaaaK  t/)v  ovvaY0)y7jv  efCKXrjoiaaov  E~t  ttjv  Ovpav  ttj^  OKTjyrjC 
Tov  naprvpfov.  I  give  the  Greek  rather  than  the  He- 
brew, because  the  Christian  Church  received  its  no- 


I  o         THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

menclature  from  the  Greek  language,  and  from  the 
Septuagint  we  find  exactly  what  the  Greek  equiva- 
lents of  the  Hebrew  were.  The  passage  I  have  cited 
identifies  the  EKKXrjoia  with  the  avvaycdyrj,  long  before 
the  technical  synagogue  had  an  existence.  Israel, 
God's  people,  collected  together  before  God  for  wor- 
ship and  instruction,  was  the  ovvayojyrj  or  eKKXTjoia. 
When  the  typical  system  which  was  given  them  had 
ceased  by  reason  of  its  fulfillment  in  the  Incarnation, 
the  tKKXrioia  or  ovvaycxiyri  still  remained,  the  essential 
Church  of  God  with  its  old  ritual  garment  removed. 
Any  use  now  of  type-words  for  the  hnKXriola  or  its 
necessaiy  appurtenances  is  out  of  place,  and  only 
calculated  to  mislead.  ''Altar"  suggests  a  sacrificial 
victim,  but  as  this  has  no  place  in  the  visible  Church 
of  Christ,  the  one  great  Victim  having  been  sacrificed 
once  for  all,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  word 
"  altar,"  any  more  than  we  have  to  do  with  the 
sacrificial  knife  and  the  blood-bowls  for  sprinkling. 
So  the  ''sanctuary"  or  "house  of  God"  has  no 
more  a  visible  representation,  since  tabernacle  and 
temple  are  swept  away,  the  whole  Church  in  its  spirit- 
ual character  being  the  house  of  God,  because  it  is 
the  body  of  Christ,  our  Lord  having  declared  that 
He  was  the  true  temple,  in  which  God  dwelt.  The 
use  of  the  words  "sanctuary"  or  "house  of  God" 
for  the  building  in  which  Christians  meet  for  worship 
and  instruction,  a  use  unfortunately  so  common  in 


INTRODUCTION :   PIIYSICAI  PREREQUISITES,    u 

our  hymns  and  prayers  and  sacred  discourse,  conveys 
the  false  notion  of  a  consecrated  locality,  directly  at 
war  with  the  universality  of  the  Christian  idea,  and 
leading  to  many  superstitious  doctrines  and  usages. 
But  above  all  is  the  misuse  of  the  word  "priest" 
a  source  of  much  practical  and  dangerous  error. 
"  Priest "  may  be  etymologically  "  presbyter "  writ 
short,  but  in  the  esteem  of  the  public  it  has  no  such 
meaning.  It  is  the  Hebrew  "  cohen,"  the  Greek 
iepevg,  and  has  no  relation  whatever  to  the  presbyter 
or  elder,  who  is  a  ruler  and  instructor,  and  not  a  sacri- 
ficial functionary  in  any  sense. 

The  Church  of  Christ,  in  its  visible  form,  has  no 
place  for  altar,  sanctuary,  or  priest.  The  church 
building  is  the  place  of  assembly  or  holy  convoca- 
tion, the  house  of  synagogue,  or  bctJi-inidrasJi.  There 
the  people  of  God  gather  together,  and  their  elders 
lead  them  in  worship,  and  expound  to  them  the  holy 
Scriptures.  The  preacher,  in  the  ordinary  use  of  the 
word,  is  the  elder  or  presbyter,  who,  on  these  oc- 
casions, is  the  guide  and  teacher  of  the  congregation. 
Etymologically,  he  is  the  speaker^  but  in  Christian 
use  he  is  the  speaker  on  divine  subjects,  as  they  are 
revealed  in  the  Word  of  God.  He  may  be  an  evan- 
gelist, going  from  place  to  place,  and  proclaiming  the 
great  saving  truths  of  the  Gospel  to  unbelievers,  or 
he  may  be  a  settled  pastor  of  a  special  flock,  to  whom 
he  ministers  the  Word  more  minutely  for  their  edifi- 


12  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

cation.  In  either  case,  he  is  also,  according  to  the 
usage  of  the  New  Testament,  a  ruler  in  the  visible 
Church.  He  has  a  determined  position,  to  which  he 
is  ordained,  and  in  which  he  is  recognized  as  differing 
from  his  brethren.  While  there  is  no  typical  ritual 
in  the  Christian  Church,  there  is  a  prescribed  order, 
and  we  are  not  warranted  in  leaving  matters  of  wor- 
ship and  instruction  to  an  unorganized  spontaneity. 
TJavra  evoxTjjJ'Ovug  koL  Kara  rd^iv  yiVEodo)  (l  Cor.  xiv.  40) 
is  a  fundamental  principle  of  Christ's  Church,  which 
forbids  all  meteoric  irregularities  and  sensational  sur- 
prises. 

Having  thus  seen  the  position  of  the  preacher  in 
the  Church,  we  are  prepared  at  once  to  decide  that 
he  is  no  popular  haranguer  or  lyceum  lecturer.  His 
object  is  not  to  tickle  the  ear  nor  to  educate  his 
audience  in  human  science  or  philosophy.  He  is 
neither  sophist  nor  college  professor.  He  is  an  officer 
of  Christ's  Church,  to  declare  Christ's  doctrine  and 
make  Christ's  people  more  Christlike.  The  exalted 
character  of  this  function  is  the  ground  of  the  neces- 
sity of  an  exalted  character  in  the  functionary.  The 
fitness  of  things  and  the  efficiency  of  his  work  alike 
demand  that  he  shall  be  no  ordinary  man,  but  one 
raised  above  others  in  true  saintliness  of  mind  and 
manner,  as  well  as  in  the  profound  knowledge  of  the 
holy  Word  which  he  preaches,  and  with  these  qualifi- 
cations he  must  be  didaicniiog,  not   only  ready  on  all 


INTRODUCTION :   PHYSICAL  PREREQUISITES.    13 

occasions  to  use  his  knowledge  for  the  good  of  others, 
but  also  gifted  with  those  elements  of  skill  by  which 
he  can  aptly  communicate  truth  and  impress  It  upon 
mind  and  conscience.  There  has  been  a  strange  in- 
fatuation in  the  Church  which  has  counted  any  man 
a  fit  candidate  for  its  ministry.  On  one  hand,  if  he 
be  a  converted  man,  a  course  of  seminary  study  is  re- 
garded as  the  full  equipment  for  the  holy  office.  This 
error  is  almost  as  harmful  to  the  Church  as  the  con- 
verse, where  a  man  of  ready  wit  and  agreeable  speech 
is  started  on  a  career  of  preaching,  without  regard  to 
either  his  piety  or  his  knowledge.  Preaching  is  thus 
divorced  from  the  preacher,  and  treated  abstractly 
without  its  personal  features.  It  is  forgotten  that 
preaching  is  a  contact  of  soul  with  soul,  and  that  its 
phenomena  are  both  psychical  and  spiritual.  The 
hearing  of  preaching  is  not  to  produce  the  same  effect 
with  the  reading  of  a  book,  nor  with  the  performance 
of  an  actor.  Truth  is  to  be  presented,  and  the 
human  voice  and  presence  are  to  produce  an  impres- 
sion ;  but  these  two  factors  together  are  equally  re- 
moved from  the  book  and  the  actor.  The  pious 
preacher  who  has  no  psychical  qualifications  is  a 
mere  book,  and  often  a  book  poorly  printed ;  while 
the  fluent  and  attractive  orator,  who  has  no  piety,  no 
spiritual  qualifications,  is  a  mere  actor.  The  true 
preacher  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  either  of  these, 
and  yet  it  must  be  said  that  the  Church  abounds  with 


14  THE  CHRISTIAN  rREACITER. 

these  incompetent  men  in  its  ministry.  Many  of  the 
facts  of  stagnation  or  decay  in  the  Church  may  be 
traced  righteously  to  this  source.  Complaints  are 
made  that  a  church  is  feeble,  and  appeals  are  made  to 
other  churches  to  sustain  it,  when  it  has  a  pastor  who 
would  inflict  chronic  feebleness  on  any  church.  I 
will  not  undertake  to  say  where  the  primal  responsi- 
bility rests.  It  may  be  that  young  men  are  hurried 
into  the  ministry  by  personal  ambition,  by  the  expec- 
tation of  social  elevation,  or  by  the  mistaken  advice 
of  pious  friends ;  it  may  be  that  Boards  of  Education 
are  too  careless  in  examining  the  qualifications  of 
their  beneiiciaries ;  it  may  be  that  seminaries  do  not 
use  a  strainer  with  fine  enough  meshes,  or  it  may  be 
that  church  judicatories  are  too  indulgent  to  the  man 
to  give  enough  heed  to  the  minister.  Wherever  the 
responsibility  may  rest,  the  weakness  of  Zion  is  owing 
largely  to  the  unfitness  of  her  ministers. 

One  common  error  that  leads  to  this  result  is  the 
treatment  of  the  preaching- office  as  a  profession, 
parallel  with  those  of  law  and  medicine.  We  are 
familiar  with  the  phrase,  "  the  three  learned  profes- 
sions," and  we  are  apt  to  accept  it  without  detecting 
its  pernicious  fallacy.  The  student  of  law  and  the 
student  of  medicine  are  preparing  for  professions 
which  are  very  serviceable  to  the  race,  and,  doubtless, 
every  right-minded  student  of  law  or  medicine  is  glad 
that  his  future  occupation  will  be  in  so  useful  a  sphere  ; 


INTRODUCTION :   PHYSICAL  PREREQUISITES.    15 

but  how  few  students  of  law  or  medicine  ever  sought 
their  profession  solely  in  order  to  benefit  their  fellow- 
man  ?     Their  support,  their  wealth,  their  power,  their 
fame — these  are  the  objects  at  which  they  aim,  and  for 
which  they  undergo  the  toilsome  years  of  study  and  re- 
search.    Now,  the  ministry  or  preaching-office  differs 
toto^  ccclo  from  these  two  professions  in  the  object  of 
its  incumbent.     The  true  preacher  seeks  neither  fame 
nor  wealth  nor  political  power  nor  pecuniary  support, 
but  only  the  glory  of  God  in  the  salvation  and  edifi- 
cation of  souls.     If  a  man  count  the  ministry  as  a 
profession,  it  has  at  once  in  his  mind  a  low,  self-gainful 
character.    It  is  a  ladder  for  helping  himself  up.    And 
what  makes  it  worse  than  any  other  profession,  it  is 
one  where  a  man  does  not  trust  to  his  own  energy 
for  success ;  but  where  he  throws  himself  upon  the 
church's  duty  to  support  him.   Young  men  go  through 
the  seminary  and  are  licensed,  and  then  claim  the 
support  of  the  Church.     Great  complaint  is  made,  if 
they  are  not  supported,  that  the  Lord's  ministers  are 
neglected  and  the  Church  is  remiss  in  its  duty.    These 
young  men  have  wholly  misunderstood  their  case. 
The  Church  is  under  no  obligation  whatever  to  sup- 
port them.     If  an  individual  church  sees  fit  to  call 
one  of  them  to  its  pastoral  office,  or  if  a  board  or 
committee  sees  fit  to  call  one  of  them  into  its  service, 
that  church  or  that  board  is  undoubtedly  under  ob- 
ligation to  support  that  man,  but  there  the  obligation 


1 6  THE  CHRIS  riA  X  PRE  A  CHER. 

ceases.  The  Church  at  large  has  no  pecuniary  obHga- 
tions  toward  the  candidates  at  large  or  the  ministers 
at  large.  The  money  question  is  one  where  the 
churches  give  the  occupation  and  also  the  wages. 
They  have  to  do  with  only  such  ministers  as  they  see 
fit  to  employ.  The  rest  have  no  pecuniary  claims 
whatever.  All  that  ordination  does  is  to  put  the 
approval  of  the  Church  upon  the  ministrations  of  the 
man  ordained,  but  no  pecuniary  support  is  involved 
in  that.  It  is  common  to  quote  our  Saviour's  words, 
''  The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire,"  as  satisfactory 
proof  that  every  licentiate  should  be  supported  by 
the  Church ;  but  our  Lord  tells  us  that  the  laborer  is 
worthy  of  his  hire,  not  every  one  who  offers  to  be  a 
laborer.  Moreover,  hire  is  a  covenanted  stipend,  and 
not  a  compulsory  tax.  I  dwell  on  this  matter  be- 
cause the  error  here  is  fruitful  of  evil.  There  are 
to-day  hundreds  of  ministers  in  our  country  who 
ought  to  be  at  tent-making,  earning  their  bread,  but 
who,  under  a  mistaken  sense  of  the  ministry  as  a  paid 
profession,  are  wandering  up  and  down  the  Church, 
beseeching  support ;  thus  degrading  themselves  in 
their  own  eyes  and  degrading  the  ministry  in  the 
eyes  of  all.  To  be  dependent  on  a  church's  call  for 
my  support,  is  to  make  myself  a  slave.  How  can  I, 
if  called,  preach  faithfully  in  rebuke  of  my  people's 
worldliness,  if  this  be  my  spirit?  In  fact  and  in  prin- 
ciple the  thing  is  wrong.     A  preacher  must  be  indc- 


INTRODUCTION :   THY  SIC  A I  PREREQUISITES.    17 

pendent,  trusting  to  the  Lord  and  his  own  energies 
for  his  daily  support,  even  while  he  rightfully  accepts 
the  laborer's  hire.  If  this  idea  of  the  ministry  were 
fairly  presented  to  every  candidate  at  the  start,  a  large 
number  would  turn  back,  all  those  who  had  sought 
the  ministry  as  a  comfortable  means  of  support,  and 
we  should  have  left  only  those  earnest,  devoted  souls 
whose  paramount  desire  was  to  proclaim  the  Saviour 
and  edify  the  Church  of  God. 

In  these  prefatory  remarks  I  have  endeavored  to 
show,  fii-st,  that  the  preacher  is  not  a  priest  in  any 
sense,  but  a  teaching  ruler  of  Christ's  Church ;  and, 
secondly,  that  certain  qualifications  are  necessary  on 
the  part  of  the  man  to  be  exalted  to  this  important 
and  sacred  office.  Into  the  details  of  these  qualifica- 
tions I  now  propose  to  enter,  and  in  dealing  with 
these  I  shall  first  treat  of  those  which  are  of  the  low- 
est sphere,  and  yet  which  are  of  equal  importance  as 
to  efficiency  with  those  of  the  highest.  I  refer  to 
physical  prerequisites. 

I.  Physical  prerequisites.  The  preacher  is  required 
to  be  ever  before  the  people.  He  is  the  familiar  form 
to  old  and  young  of  his  congregation,  and,  outside  of 
large  cities,  to  the  whole  community.  Now,  it  is  sadly 
true  that  there  may  be  defects  in  the  outward  man 
which  may  incapacitate  him  for  a  leader's  position,  no 
matter  what  his  mental  and  moral  excellencies  may 


1 8  THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

be.  The  general  proposition  every  one  will  approve 
on  its  statement.  A  physical  defect  that  would 
naturally  awaken  painful  or  ludicrous  emotions  in  an 
audience,  could  not  be  endured  in  a  public  speaker. 
However  much  our  sympathy  might  be  excited  for 
the  unfortunate  man,  and  however  much  we  might 
endeavor  to  annul  the  objection,  the  stern,  unyield- 
ing- law  of  association  would  rule  out  the  afflicted 
orator  from  his  conspicuous  position.  We  must  bow 
to  the  necessity,  and  conform  to  the  conditions  of  life 
in  which  we  are  placed  by  a  superior  Power.  But 
while  every  one  is  ready  to  approve  this  general  prop- 
osition regarding  bodily  defects,  many  are  not  pre- 
pared to  go  so  far  as  to  put  among  the  unworthy 
those  whose  defects  excite  neither  painful  nor  ludi- 
crous emotions,  but  are  simply  obstacles  to  edification. 
And  yet  I  can  not  but  hold  that  one  whose  most 
prominent  function  it  is  to  use  his  voice  in  a  large 
assembly,  must  be  a  man  neither  of  obscure  nor  fee- 
ble utterance.  His  words  should  be  both  clear  and 
loud,  that  the  illiterate  and  the  old  may  not  be  left  in 
doubt  as  to  his  meaning.  It  is  most  true  that  the 
voice  can  be  cultivated,  and  that  patient  and  wise 
training  (which,  however,  is  very  rare)  may  overcome 
many  errors  in  volume,  tone,  and  enunciation ;  but 
with  this  granted,  there  still  are  many  organically  de- 
fective voices  that  never  could  be  made  the  proper 
instrument  of  the  preacher.     The  weak-voiced  and 


INTRODUCTION :  PHYSICAL  PREREQUISITES,    ic) 

thick-voiced  should  see  in  their  infirmities  a  clear  in- 
dication that  they  are  not  called  to  the  preaching  of 
the  Gospel. 

I  am  not  aware  that  sufficient  attention  is  given  to 
the  use  of  the  voice  in  our  theological  seminaries. 
The  ordinary  elocution  teacher  generally  does  more 
harm  than  good.  He  may  induce  a  man  to  speak  loud 
and  distinctly,  but  he  is  very  apt  to  make  him  speak 
with  an  affected  emphasis  that  mars  his  simplicity  and 
sincerity.  He  is  apt  to  fill  his  pupil  with  self-conscious- 
ness in  utterance,  and  so  give  him  the  exaggerations  of 
a  stage-actor.  It  is  not  the  professional  elocutionist 
who  is  needed,  but  a  friendly  critic  to  show  a  man  his 
defects  of  utterance,  and  a  general  attention  to  the 
primary  laws  of  speech.  It  is  not  so  much  the  attain- 
ment of  any  positive  methods  of  articulation  and  em- 
phasis, which  are  so  likely  to  be  mere  tricks  of  a  per- 
former, that  is  to  be  sought,  as  the  avoidance  of  posi- 
tive errors  caused  by  carelessness  or  slovenliness.  A 
preacher  should  remember  to  use  his  rib  muscles  as 
bellows  and  his  throat  muscles  as  articulation-keys, 
instead  of  making  the  latter  do  service  for  both.  For 
this  purpose  he  should  stand  erect,  and  not  stoop 
over  his  manuscript.  His  head  should  be  lifted  and 
his  shoulders  thrown  back,  so  that  his  voice  be  not 
impeded  in  its  course.  He  should  pronounce  each 
syllable  not  emphatically,  but  clearly,  and  not  leave 
his  audience  to  guess  out  the  last  words  of  his  sen- 


20  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

tences.  He  should  remember  that  he  is  speaking  to 
a  multitude,  and  not  to  a  single  friend  by  his  side, 
and  also  that  some  of  his  audience  are  doubtless  of 
imperfect  hearing.  And  what  is  important  in  the  de- 
livery of  the  discourse  is  also  important  in  the 
announcement  of  text  and  hymn  and  chapter,  points 
on  which  every  one  in  the  congregation  ought  to  be 
informed,  but  where  the  minister  is  often  so  careless, 
that  half  his  people  have  to  ask  the  other  half  the 
number,  or  else  neglect  to  join  in  a  part  of  the  service. 
No  student  should  have  the  endorsement  of  seminary 
or  church  council  until  he  can  properly  acquit  himself 
in  these  matters,  which  are  so  generally  regarded  as 
of  small  consequence  and  beneath  the  notice  of  offi- 
cial criticism.  If  we  were  fitting  men  for  mere  earthly 
positions,  such  as  the  lyceum  platform  or  the  stage, 
we  should  insist  on  these  fundamental  requirements  of 
the  voice  and  its  use.  And  shall  we  slight  these  re- 
quirements in  the  high  and  responsible  duties  of  the 
Church  of  Christ,  as  if  the  law  of  fitness  had  no 
application  there? 

Another  observation  is  founded  on  the  fact  that 
the  duties  of  the  constituted  preacher  are  arduous 
and  constant.  It  is  that  he  must  have  a  good  phys- 
ical organization.  He  must  be  able  to  bear  frequent 
and  copious  draughts  upon  his  nervous  energy,  for 
his  preaching  involves  not  only  the  labor  of  prepara- 
tion,  but    sympathy,   solicitude,   and    searching   em- 


INTRODUCTIOX :  F/IYSICAL  PREREQUISITES.    2  I 

phasis  in  delivery,  as  well  as  the  personal  ministry 
that  forms  the  groundwork  of  his  public  appeals  and 
instruction.  He  is  to  be  touched  daily  by  the  sor- 
rows of  his  people,  and  feel  for  their  spiritual  wants 
a  parent's  care ;  while,  in  the  retirement  of  the  study, 
he  is  to  spare  no  pains  to  furnish  his  mind  for  the 
important  didactic  function  which  is  peculiarly  his. 
Such  a  Avork,  bringing  into  constant  exercise  the  in- 
most elements  and  faculties  of  his  being,  requires  a 
physical  frame  sufficient  to  endure  this  enormous 
strain.  If  men  are  picked  according  to  physical 
health  for  the  military  service  of  a  country,  much 
more  is  such  a  selection  necessary  for  those  who  are 
to  expose  their  bodies  to  a  severer  trial  than  that  of 
the  camp  and  picket-guard.  In  the  former  case,  the 
very  exposure  of  their  occupation  toughens  and 
strengthens  their  bodies,  but  in  the  latter  every  put- 
ting-forth  of  energy  in  the  line  of  the  occupation  is  a 
drain  upon  the  physical  man,  and  there  is  no  corre- 
sponding recompense.  For  a  weak-bodied  man,  there- 
fore, to  undertake  the  onerous  duties  of  the  preacher 
seems  to  me  to  be  a  tempting  of  Providence.  Where 
there  is  organic  difficulty  of  lungs,  heart,  or  nerves, 
the  work  for  God  is  to  be  done  in  some  other  way 
than  in  the  ministry.  We  have  everj'  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  prophets  and  apostles  and  evangelists  of 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  New  were  men  of  strong 
physical  structure,  or,  at  least,  of  sound  health.     We 


22  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

think  of  Moses  climbing  the  cliffs  of  Sinai,  Samuel 
hewing  Agag  in  pieces,  Jeremiah  trudging  off  to  the 
Euphrates  and  back  twice  for  a  single  lesson  to  Ju- 
dah,  Elijah  traversing  the  wilderness,  the  apostles 
journeying  into  all  lands,  as  men  of  muscle  and  sound 
physical  organs.  Nor  is  Paul  to  be  considered  a  whit 
less  stal-Cv^art  than  the  rest.  His  weakness  of  appear- 
ance (which  his  enemies  asserted  to  exist)  may  have 
been  in  his  diminutive  size,  or  in  some  misshapen 
feature  of  his  face  ;  but  surely  the  man  whose  life  lay 
in  journeyings,  in  perils  of  waters,  in  perils  of  rob- 
bers, in  perils  in  the  city,  in  perils  in  the  wilderness, 
in  perils  in  the  sea,  in  weariness  and  painfulness,  in 
watchings,  in  hunger  and  thirst,  in  fastings,  in  cold 
and  nakedness,  in  abundant  labors,  in  prisons,  with 
eight  public  scourgings,  a  stoning  and  a  shipwreck  and 
the  care  of  all  the  Churches,  must  have  been  a  man 
of  iron  constitution.  Nor  is  Timothy  an  exception  ; 
the  wine  for  his  stomach's  sake  and  often  infirmi- 
ties clearly  showing  that  his  infirmities  were  not  of  a 
very  severe  character.  The  settled  pastor  or  preacher, 
even  more  than  the  itinerant  evangelist  (such  as  most 
of  these  were),  needs  this  strong  physical  foundation 
for  his  life-work.  He  has  not  the  change  of  scene 
and  necessity  of  locomotion  which  may  act  as  a  re- 
lief and  restorative  to  the  evangelist.  He  consumes 
his  vitality  as  rapidly,  and  has  less  resources  for  its 
renewal. 


INTRODUCTION :  PHYSICAL  PREREQUISITES.    23 

The  frequency  with  which  ministers  are  laid  aside 
from  pubhc  duties  by  reason  of  sickness  largely 
arises  from  a  want  of  regard  to  this  physical  qualifi- 
cation of  a  strong,  healthy  constitution,  without 
which  the  preacher  attempts  an  impossible  work ;  the 
only  alternative  to  a  breaking-down  being  a  slow  and 
easy  way  of  performing  ministerial  duties,  or  rather 
seeming  to  perform  them,  which  no  conscientious 
spirit  could  consent  to  for  a  moment.  I  do  not  deny 
that  every  preacher  may  have  and  should  have  his 
time  for  recreation,  but  with  such  time  reasonably 
adjusted  to  his  life-scheme,  he  is  nevertheless  sub- 
jected to  vicissitudes  of  mental  and  moral  experience 
in  his  ministry,  which  absolutely  require  a  body  well- 
ordered  in  health  and  vigor. 

It  is  a  common  fallacy,  born  of  malice  and  endorsed 
by  the  unworthiness  of  a  few,  that  the  preacher  leads 
an  idle  life.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  no  life  so  ardu- 
ous as  that  of  the  conscientious  minister.  There  are 
certain  duties  in  which  others  are  more  severely 
exercised  than  he.  The  physician  has  to  suffer  fre- 
quent interruption  of  his  hours  of  sleep,  and  the 
mechanic  has  to  undergo  a  weariness  of  the  muscles 
to  which  a  minister  is  a  stranger.  But  there  is  no 
calling  which  so  constantly  demands  so  large  an  at- 
tention of  the  profounder  faculties  and,  therefore, 
such  an  incessant  strain  upon  the  nervous  energies  of 
a  man,  as  that  which  seeks  the  souls  of  men  and  min- 


24 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


isters  to  them  the  deep  things  of  God.  The  study  of 
character  and  disposition,  the  dialectic  of  sin  and  its 
excuses,  the  appHcations  of  sympathy  both  for  com- 
fort and  for  rebuke,  the  discriminations  between  men 
so  as  to  be  all  things  to  all  men,  the  serpent-wisdom 
carried  by  a  dove-harmlessness,  the  sense  of  the 
earthen  vessel's  unfitness  ever  demanding  the  faith- 
life  instead  of  the  sight-life,  the  constant  readi- 
ness for  action  in  spite  of  physical  and  nervous  in- 
firmity, the  investigations  of  language,  the  compari- 
sons of  thought,  the  broad  outlook  upon  life  and  his- 
tory, the  watchfulness  over  the  personal  walk  as 
furnishing  a  guiding  example,  the  responsibility  for 
immortal  souls — these  are  some  of  the  absorbing 
duties  and  affections  of  the  Christian  preacher, 
which  make  his  life  incomparably  the  most  trying  to 
the  physical  man.  It  may  be  urged  against  this 
position  that  preachers  are  distinguished  for  longev- 
ity, and  that  life-insurance  companies  act  accordingly. 
The  answer  is  twofold :  first,  that  preachers  generally 
die  very  young  or  very  old.  A  large  number  of 
preachers  fill  early  graves.  They  have  entered  upon 
the  laborious  life  with  a  slender  physical  constitution 
and  have  soon  succumbed  to  its  severe  conditions. 

The  longevity  of  the  ministry,  when  examined,  is 
the  longevity  of  those  members  of  the  ministry  who 
do  not  die  young.  That  is,  if  a  minister  has  physical 
constitution  enough  to  bear  the  draughts  upon  it,  he 


INTRODUCTION :   THY  SIC  A I  PREREQUISITES.    25 

will  probably  live  longer  than  any  one  else.  The 
second  answer  has  reference  to  this  latter  fact,  and  is 
this,  that  the  consciousness  that  one  is  directly  and 
officially  engaged  in  the  grandest  of  all  works,  that 
he  is  in  the  whole  effort  of  his  life  co-operating  with 
God  in  His  purposes  of  grace,  and  the  peaceful  con- 
science that  accompanies  this  consciousness,  render 
the  mind  free  from  those  inward  conflicts  and  collis- 
ions, anxieties,  and  disappointments  which  do  so 
much  to  shorten  human  life.  In  this  way,  with  duties 
most  trying  to  the  physical  man,  the  minister  can 
maintain  and  prolong  his  physical  life  beyond  others. 

It  is  not  an  idle  life,  then,  that  promotes  the 
preacher's  longevity.  We  are,  as  already  said,  to 
seek  for  the  causes  in  the  freedom  from  harassing 
cares  and  anxieties  which  a  low  earthly  ambition 
generates,  instead  of  which  are  the  clear  conscience 
and  the  happy  knowledge  of  a  high  and  holy  voca- 
tion. 

We  have  thus  far  regarded  the  preacher's  physical 
health,  simply  as  a  necessary  foundation  on  which  to 
build  his  energetic  life,  as  the  proper  support  to  his 
efficiency  of  force ;  but  w^e  should  not  do  justice  to 
this  department  of  our  subject,  if  we  did  not  notice 
the  close  connection  that  often  obtains  between 
bodily  weakness  and  erroneous  doctrine.  We  do  not 
say  that  a  man's  liver  might  cause  him  to  reject  the 
atonement,  or  his  neuralgia  might  make  him  a  Swe- 


26  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

denborgian.  We  do  not  attribute  to  any  degree  of 
physical  disease  a  destruction  of  the  Biblical  system 
of  doctrine  in  the  subject  of  disease,  but  we  are  con- 
fident that  the  coloring  of  a  preacher's  teaching  is 
largely  affected  by  his  morbosity;  Gloomy  views  of 
the  Christian  life,  a  false  estimate  of  the  relations 
which  Christians  should  sustain  toward  the  moving 
world  around  them,  and  ascetic  admixture  with  the 
duties  of  religion,  a  lack  of  practical  sympathy  with 
the  varieties  of  disposition  found  in  a  congregation 
of  a  thousand  souls,  and  a  failure  to  feel  and  exhibit 
the  just  inter-proportions  of  Scriptural  doctrine,  are 
natural  results  of  an  enfeebled  constitution,  where 
the  wheels  of  physical  life  work  jarringly  and  pain- 
fully. 

The  preacher  can  not  stand  up  before  his  people, 
trusting  to  a  margin  of  pity  and  lenient  judgment  on 
their  part.  There  are  too  many  profound  interests  at 
stake.  He  is  the  teacher  and  guide,  and  can  not 
afford  to  have  any  excuses  for  misleading.  His  fit- 
ness should  be  such  as  to  render  no  excuses  neces- 
sary. 

The  question  is  not  as  to  who  shall  testify  for 
Christ,  for  those  most  afflicted  in  body  can  often  give 
the  clearest  and  most  effective  testimony;  but,  who 
shall  be  the  official  leader  in  thought,  expounding 
the  Scriptures,  and  exhorting  the  souls  of  men— 
who   shall   perform    this   constant,  many-sided  duty 


INTRODUCTION :  PHYSICAL  PREREQUISITES.    27 

under  all  the  emergencies  of  ministerial  life.  It  is 
far  more  than  a  witness  that  is  needed.  It  is  one 
whose  faculties  are  all  sound  and  prompt  to  act,  who 
can  perceive  with  comprehensive  vision,  discriminate 
with  acuteness,  decide  with  wisdom,  and  exhort  with 
persuasion ;  one  who,  forgetful  of  self,  is  all  in  his 
subject  and  his  hearers ;  one  who  never  wearies  nor 
worries  in  his  work,  but  seeks  it  as  water  seeks  its 
level. 

Can  any  one  deny  that  bodily  health  must  be  the 
physical  basis  of  such  a  functionary?  While  we  are 
in  the  body,  we  must  acknowledge  its  relation  to  our 
highest  life  and  activity.  However  a  refined  philos- 
ophy may  despise  it,  wisdom  can  never  neglect  it. 
The  necessities  of  our  composite  being  must  be  regard- 
ed, and,  however  humiliating  it  may  be  to  our  spirit- 
ual man,  we  must  in  all  our  preparations  for  spiritual 
work  recognize  the  important  part  which  the  body  is 
called  upon  to  play. 

We  have  endeavored  to  show  this  importance  of 
a  sound  body  in  the  Christian  preacher:  that  it  is 
necessary  for  the  comfort  and  edification  of  his  peo- 
ple, and  for  his  own  proper  energy  and  truthfulness, 
but  we  will  not  be  understood  for  a  moment  as  mak- 
ing those  physical  prerequisites  of  first  consequence, 
because  we  put  them  naturally  first  in  order  of 
thought  and  mention.  We  do  not  forget  that  the 
preacher's  office  is  a  divine  one,  that  it  was  consti- 


28  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

tuted  by  the  Lord  of  the  Church,  that  it  is  one  of 
the  special  forces  by  which  He  preserves,  nourishes, 
and  exalts  His  mystic  bride,  and  that  its  glory  is 
altogether  a  divine  and  spiritual  glor}^,  not  to  be  com- 
prehended or  judged  by  the  natural  mind. 

Our  appeal  for  healthy  ministers  is  not  an  appeal 
in  behalf  of  the  natural  mind,  but  in  behalf  of  that 
true  wisdom  which  carefully  adapts  its  means  to 
their  ends,  and  which,  in  the  oflfices  of  the  Church  of 
Christ,  finds  a  physical  as  well  as  a  spiritual  life  to 
deal  with,  and  of  which  to  make  a  factor  in  all  the 
processes  of  organized  activity. 


MENTAL    PREREQUISITES. 


LECTURE    II. 
MENTAL    PREREQUISITES. 

In  my  introductory  lecture  I  endeavored  to  define 
the  preacher  and  show  that  the  definition  impHed 
very  marked  prerequisites  in  the  man.  I  further  en- 
deavored to  set  before  you  the  necessity  of  certain 
physical  qualifications  in  one  whose  duties  were  so 
arduous,  who  was  to  be  so  intimately  associated  with 
every  form  of  life,  and  who  was  habitually  to  address 
large  congregations  of  people  for  their  edification. 

In  my  present  lecture  I  enter  upon  the  mental 
prerequisites  of  the  preacher. 

II.  Mental  prerequisites.     While  it  is  undoubtedly 

true  that  the  grace  of  God  addresses  itself  with  equal 

power  to  every  class  of  mind,  and  it  is  the  glory  of 

the  Gospel  that  it  is  adapted  to  the  appreciation  of 

the  illiterate  as  well  as  to  that  of  the  learned,  it  is 

equally  true  that  the  setting  forth  of  God's  revealed 

truth  in  its  connections  and  fullness,  and  the  thorough 

and  profound  exposition  of  the  Holy  Word  can  be 

made  only  by  the  higher  classes  of  mind,  capacious 

and  powerful  to  deal  with  the  sublimest  ideas,  and 

furnished  with  rich  stores  of  the  divine  knowledge. 

(31) 


32  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

The  men  whom  Christ  first  chose  to  carry  His  truth 
to  the  world  were  peasants  and  fishermen  mostly,  but 
none  the  less  for  that  were  men  of  stalwart  minds, 
and  those  put  for  three  years  under  the  grandest 
training  ever  vouchsafed  to  man.  They  were  used  to 
every  form  of  human  character  and  thought,  living 
in  constant  contact  with  every  type  of  society,  and 
receiving  from  the  fountain-head  of  truth  its  constant 
and  noblest  communications.  We  are  not  to  slight 
this  token,  and  commit  the  Church's  teachings  to 
any  one  who  has  a  voice.  We  may  seek  simplicity  in 
the  structure  and  operations  of  the  Church.  That 
is  in  consonance  with  the  Christian  scheme.  But  we 
are  not  to  seek  simplicity  of  brain  for  the  Church's 
ministers,  supposing  that  weakness  of  intellect  is  the 
style  of  earthen  vessel  which  is  to  be  contrasted  with 
the  heavenly  treasure.  That  contrast  is  sufficiently 
maintained  when  the  stoutest  intellect  is  compared 
with  the  truth  divine  of  the  Gospel.  We  need  not 
force  a  contrast  by  seeking  a  lower  grade  of  mind. 

In  describing  the  character  of  mind  that  a  preacher 
should  have,  we  might  be  contented  with  the  general 
remark  that  a  strong,  well-rounded  development  of  in- 
telligence was  necessary,  that  he  should  be  above  the 
ordinaiy  level  of  men  in  his  grasp  of  truth  and  powers 
of  analysis,  that  he  should  be  ready  to  meet  the  wants 
and  the  oppositions  of  the  many  with  whom  he  must 
come  into  contact,  and  so  should  prove  himself  a  leader 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES.  33 

of  the  people.  But  as  these  general  expressions 
might  be  variously  interpreted  by  different  hearers,  a 
more  careful  and  minute  enumeration  of  the  preach- 
er's intellectual  characteristics  may  be  allowed.  Let 
me  then  mention — 

I.  Aciiteness  of  perception.  This  is  the  ready  and 
sharp  use  of  the  mental  eye.  It  involves  a  rapid  glanc- 
ing at  all  the  objects  within  range  of  the  vision.  It 
looks  at  the  one  main  object  of  research  chiefly,  but 
also  notes  its  relation  to  every  other  object.  It  is  the 
characteristic  of  a  watchman  whose  eye  sweeps  the 
whole  horizon,  and  takes  in  every  tree,  bush,  and 
rock.  The  preacher  who  has  his  topic  to  unfold,  or 
his  Scripture  to  expound,  must  knoxv  his  subject,  and 
he  can  not  be  said  to  know  his  subject  till  he  has 
looked  at  it  in  every  possible  light,  and  noted  its  con- 
nections with  all  other  truth.  It  is  very  easy  for  an 
essayist  to  nurse  his  theme  out  of  all  proportion  to 
its  related  subjects.  He  has  applied  his  magnifying- 
glass,  and  all  that  comes  within  its  field  is  out  of  har- 
mony w'ith  that  which  is  beyond.  If  this  be  done  as 
part  of  a  process  which  takes  up  successive  portions 
of  truth  in  detail,  it  is  all  very  well,  and  the  mind  will 
readily  adapt  itself  to  the  consecutive  examinations. 
But  if,  as  is  too  often  the  case,  the  glass  is  always 
kept  on  one  spot,  the  truth  is  not  presented,  but  ob- 
scured. The  great  is  lost  in  the  little.  The  whole  is 
sacrificed  for  a  part,  and  a  part-truth  is  frequently  a 


34 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


falsehood.  Some  men  are  always  ready  to  treat  of 
any  subject  on  which  they  have  crammed,  and  such 
speakers  are  wont  to  be  very  decided  and  dogmatic. 
They  feel  quite  confident  in  their  newly-acquired 
knowledge,  and  announce  it  as  if  it  had  been  born 
with  them,  when  a  score  of  modifying  truths,  well- 
known  to  the  experience  of  others,  have  never  crossed 
their  brain.  The  so-called  "  self-made  man  "  is  gen- 
erally of  this  sort,  of  whom  some  wag  has  said  that 
one  good  thing  you  can  affirm  of  him,  and  that  is, 
that  he  worships  his  Creator.  The  self-made  man, 
having  had  little  learning  and  less  training,  mistakes  a 
novelty  for  a  profound  truth,  and  builds  a  philosophy 
on  his  discovery,  when  to  more  educated  minds  his 
novelty  is  an  exploded  theory  or  a  misapprehended 
fact.  He  vaunts  himself  before  the  community  and 
has,  unfortunately,  power  to  lead  other  simpletons 
astray,  the  great  public  being  remarkably  incompetent 
to  judge  of  the  merits  of  their  teachers. 

Now,  when  such  a  man  occupies  the  pulpit  and  be- 
comes the  accredited  preacher  of  a  Christian  church, 
his  capacity  for  doing  harm  is  immense.  He  speaks 
with  the  authority  of  the  Church  and  with  the  tacit 
support  of  his  brother  ministers,  who  are  afraid  to 
correct  him,  lest  they  encounter  the  opposing  tide  of 
popularity,  and  receive  the  opprobrious  title  of  "  here- 
sy-hunters." 

The  crude  theology  which  is  so  often  given  to  the 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES.  35 

people  by  their  preachers  is  not  so  much  the  result  of 
a  false  logic  or  a  perverse  heart  as  of  sheer  ignorance. 
The  great  themes  of  discourse  have  never  been  thor- 
oughly pondered.  There  has  been  no  triangulation 
of  the  field  of  thought,  no  observations  from  sur- 
rounding heights,  no  corrections  of  measure  and  di- 
rection by  the  necessary  modifying  calculations. 

The  lack  to  which  we  now  refer  is  not  so  much  of 
knowledge  as  of  adjusted  knowledge,  the  emyvuoig  so 
often  mentioned,  and  so  hard  to  translate,  in  the  New 
Testament.  The  lack  may  be  owing  to  natural  defi- 
ciency, but  is  as  likely  to  be  the  result  of  a  slovenly 
habit  of  mind,  confirmed  through  want  of  systematic 
training. 

A  preacher  with  this  defect  is  apt  to  take  a  text 
without  any  regard  to  its  context,  or  the  conditions 
under  which  it  was  written,  and  will  use  it  as  a  motto 
to  his  preconceived  notions.  He  is  readily  deceived 
by  a  word.  He  regards  hell  as  hell,  whether  it  be 
yievva  or  dSrjg.  He  never  discriminates  between  the 
Holy  Spirit  and  the  human  spirit,  between  salvation 
in  its  sense  of  rescue  from  sin  and  death,  and  salvation 
in  its  sense  of  completed  redemption.  Wherever  he 
sees  the  word  "  soul "  he  has  only  one  idea  regarding 
it.  Everywhere  his  want  of  critical  acumen  confounds 
things  that  differ,  and  by  his  clumsiness  he  often,  in- 
stead of  implanting  truth,  sows  the  seeds  of  doubt  in 
the  minds  of  discriminating  hearers. 


36  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

We  hold  that  the  preacher  is  the  interpreter  of 
God's  Word,  that  he  has  the  divine  teaching  first  to 
gather  and  then  to  distribute,  and  that  he  has  no 
other  source  of  instruction  than  the  revelation  God 
has  made  by  prophets  and  apostles,  in  using  which  he 
has  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit  through  the  or- 
dinary faculties  of  his  mind.  All  other  knowledge 
that  he  may  possess  is  of  avail  to  him  as  preacher 
only  as  it  is  subservient  to  the  illustration  of  the  di- 
vine revelation.  In  this  we  take  direct  issue  with  those 
who  would  make  the  preacher  the  general  instructor 
of  his  people  in  philosophy,  who  could  as  well  take 
his  text  from  the  Vendidad  or  the  works  of  Confucius 
or  the  dialogues  of  Plato  as  from  the  Bible.  If  the 
preacher  is  to  hold  this  relation  to  his  people,  for 
Christianity  is  substituted  culture  and  for  the  Church 
civilization.  It  is  not  what  man  can  develop  out  of 
himself,  it  is  not  what  science  and  philosophy  can 
teach,  but  it  is  what  God  has  revealed,  over  and 
above  all  that  man  could  otherwise  know,  with  which 
the  preacher  has  to  deal.  The  Bible,  therefore,  is  his 
one  treasury  from  which  he  is  ever  to  draw. 

And  here  let  me  withdraw  a  few  moments  from  the 
direct  thread  of  my  argument  to  speak  of  that  Bible, 
out  of  which  all  Christianity  has  issued,  and  on  which 
all  Christianity  rests.  The  Bible  is  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, whose  perfect  truth  and  complete  inspiration  is 
attested  by  our  Lord  himself  and  His  apostles,  and 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES.  37 

the  New  Testament,  for  whose  equal  truth  and  in- 
spiration the  Saviour  promised  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  the 
Helper,  who  should  teach  His  apostles  all  things  and 
bring  all  things  to  their  remembrance,  the  Spirit  of 
truth,  who  should  especially  testify  of  Christ. 

With  regard  to  the  Old  Testament,  if  there  had 
been  any  falsehood  or  error  in  it,  we  may  be  sure  that 
our  Saviour  would  have  pointed  it  out,  as  He  did 
point  out  the  errors  of  the  traditions,  and  in  accord- 
ance with  that  principle  enunciated  by  our  Lord 
when  He  said  to  His  disciples  regarding  another  im- 
portant subject,  "  If  it  were  not  so,  I  would  have  told 
you."  If  the  Jewish  priesthood  had  been  a  late  in- 
vention of  the  royal  period,  with  a  post-exilian  ap- 
pendix, if  the  Psalms  had  been  mere  hap-hazard 
poetry  of  excited  and  unreasonable  (not  to  say  wicked) 
minds,  if  the  ancient  story  of  the  historical  books  had 
been  a  clumsy  concatenation  of  local  and  tribal 
myths,  if  the  prophets  had  written  their  predictions 
after  the  events,  how  could  He,  whose  name  was 
Truth,  have  constantly  and  emphatically  held  up  this 
book  as  the  infallible  guide  of  man,  putting  its  evi- 
dence before  that  of  any  miracle,  without  ever  suggest- 
ing any  exception  to  be  taken  against  the  holy  and 
revered  volume?  The  modern  attacks  upon  the  Old 
Testament  are  but  masked  attacks  upon  our  Lord 
himself.  By  destroying  the  genuineness,  authenticity, 
and    inspiration    of  the    Old    Testament,  they  both 


38  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

make  Jesus  a  liar  and  cut  off  from  Him  all  tlie  Messi- 
anic testimonies.  They  thus  gain  their  end,  which  is 
to  eliminate  all  that  is  supernatural  from  religion,  and 
annul  all  the  distinctive  features  of  Christianity. 
The  great  inner  facts  of  sacrifice  and  atonement,  out 
of  which  only  can  grow  the  true  Christian  life,  are 
annihilated,  and  Christ  is  left  as  simply  a  good  man 
giving  some  excellent  advice  along  with  some  narrow 
Jewish  errors. 

It  is  for  the  Christian  to  stand  with  his  Saviour  by 
the  sacred  oracles,  and  to  recognize  in  the  first  lisp- 
ings  of  the  new  criticism  the  Judas  assault  upon  the 
Son  of  God. 

With  regard  to  the  New  Testament,  the  inner  evi- 
dence, as  well  as  the  testimony  of  the  Church,  far  out- 
weighs all  that  the  ingenious  trifling  of  great  minds 
has  brought  to  bear  against  its  divine  character  and 
its  integral  preservation.  A  mighty  chasm  separates 
it  from  the  works  of  the  Ante-Nicene  fathers  who 
chronologically  followed  immediately.  The  New 
Testament  stands  out  as  a  mount  of  God,  with  noth- 
ing like  it  on  either  side  in  the  centuries  immediately 
preceding  or  the  centuries  succeeding.  It  fits  in  at 
every  jut  and  indenture  with  the  Old  Testament,  and 
yet  in  no  mechanical  and  artificial  way.  It  is  the 
adaptedness  of  a  perfect  growth.  Now  it  is  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments,  this  Bible  of  God,  which  is  to 
be  the  material  for  the  preacher's  use.     And  because 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES.  3^ 

it  is  God's,  and  no  other  book  is  God's,  nor  are  man's 
excogitations  God's,  the  preacher  is  not  to  allow  any 
human  authority  to  mingle  itself  with  the  divine,  as 
such  human  authority  is  found  in  philosophy  or 
poetry  or  the  inferences  of  science. 

The  acuteness  or  penetration  which  should  be 
characteristic  of  a  Christian  preacher  is,  therefore, 
primarily  to  be  exercised  with  regard  to  the  Word  of 
God.  It  is  not  that  he  should  be  familiar  with  that 
word,  but  that,  being  familiar  with  it,  he  should  have 
a  discerning  eye  to  understand  its  correlated  teach- 
ings. He  should  be  able  at  once  to  measure  figure, 
parable,  prophecy,  history,  precept,  as  in  turn  they 
come  before  his  view,  to  bring  into  right  relation  the 
chronological  and  circumstantial  conditions  of  the 
different  parts,  to  weigh  the  language  (which  has  a 
varying  standard)  according  to  the  stand-point  of  the 
speaker  or  writer,  and  yet  to  recognize  in  all  the  im- 
manent pov/er  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

Divine  truth  lies  in  the  Scriptures  as  gold  in  a 
mine.  It  has  to  be  sought  with  care.  He  who  takes 
but  the  superficial  meaning  may  get  a  nugget  or  may 
get  a  grasp  of  ore  only.  The  searching  of  the  Script- 
ures implies  careful  and  studious  handling.  Even 
the  illiterate  must  ponder  and  meditate  upon  the 
Word.  Much  more  must  he,  who  is  to  feed  the 
church  as  pastor,  be  a  thorough  explorer  of  the 
broad  field,  that  he  may  gather  for  the  flock  what 


40  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

God  has  sown  over  so  wide  a  surface.  Whatever 
the  metaphor  we  use,  whether  it  be  that  of  a  mine 
or  a  large  land  of  nourishing  growth,  persevering 
energy  in  research  is  the  duty  of  him  who  would 
spread  divine  things  before  the  human  mind  and 
heart.  He  is  like  a  Joseph  placed  over  a  great  em- 
pire, and  needs  a  clear  eye,  a  thorough  system,  a  har- 
monizing power  to  supply  the  granaries  whence  the 
people  draw  their  life. 

That  the  preacher  should  be  acquainted  with  the 
Greek  and  Hebrew  languages  ''goes  without  saying." 
In  those  languages  God  saw  fit  to  give  His  truth  to 
man,  and  to  those  languages  we  must  go  for  all 
authoritative  decisions  of  disputed  questions.  No 
translation  can  exactly  represent  the  original.  All 
translations  are  sufficiently  true  to  lead  the  soul  to 
Christ,  and  to  nourish  it  in  the  new  life,  but  we  need 
more  than  this.  There  is  an  edifying  of  the  soul  both 
quantitatively  and  qualitatively,  which  is  proportion- 
ed to  its  faithful  search  into  the  mind  of  God.  This 
is  only  done  by  Biblical  exploration.  Nice  distinc- 
tions, minute  connections,  intricate  sequences,  all 
having  direct  spiritual  application,  are  to  be  discov- 
ered by  this  exploration,  and  a  knowledge  of  the 
Greek  and  Hebrew  is  an  absolute  necessity  to  this, 
either  for  the  individual  Christian  or  his  proxy,  the 
preacher.  The  blunders  of  a  ministry  uninstructed 
in   the  Word  of  God,  are   not  only  ludicrous,  but 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES.  41 

harmful  to  the  Church.  A  Church  that  does  not  grow 
symmetrically  by  the  Word  of  God,  will  grow  de- 
formedly  by  false  teaching.  The  preacher  can  be 
preserved  from  blunders  only  by  a  personal  examina- 
tion of  the  divine  record,  and  the  examination  must 
be  that  of  a  sacred  scientist.  No  natural  science  de- 
mands more  careful  and  acute  analysis  and  a  more 
thorough  and  extensive  induction.  It  is  only  by  this 
scientific  use  of  the  Word  of  God  that  the  Church  is 
to  be  preserved  from  the  errors  of  narrow-minded, 
prejudiced,  or  fanatical  leaders. 

But  while  the  acuteness  of  perception  of  the 
preacher  is  to  be  exercised  chiefly  upon  the  written 
revelation  of  God,  it  is  not  to  end  there.  Every  sub- 
ject of  importance  to  the  Christian  life  is  undoubtedly 
presented  in"  the  Bible,  but  these  subjects  have  ana- 
logues in  the  social  and  political  life  of  men,  by  which 
they  may  be  illustrated.  A  preacher  should  have  his 
eye  traversing  the  course  of  history  and  the  great 
facts  of  human  society,  so  as  to  illustrate  and  confirm 
his  expositions  of  the  Word.  He  should  be  quick  to 
discern  the  various  institutions  of  man,  and  to  trace 
the  actions  of  human  nature  in  their  manifold  forms. 
By  such  a  panoramic  view  of  life  he  has  ready  not 
only  the  illustrations  of  Scripture  teaching,  but  also 
its  proper  adaptations.  He  sees  where  rightly  to 
apply  the  truth  that  he  has  gathered  from  the  Word. 
He  knows  what  portion  of  truth  is  specially  appropri- 


42  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

ate  for  any  special  occasion,  and  will  not  deal  in  bar- 
ren generalities  or  irrelevant  discourse.  Furthermore, 
this  acuteness  of  the  preacher  will  readily  detect  the 
fallacies  of  infidelity,  whether  in  the  premises  of  phi- 
losophical statement  or  in  the  conclusions  from  sci- 
entific induction,  and  be  able,  without  any  supposed 
need  of  mastering  the  details  of  any  special  science, 
to  render  its  attacks  innocuous. 

We  have  now,  in  this  one  trait  of  mind,  described 
a  man  of  no  ordinary  style,  the  man  of  acute  vision 
over  a  broad  field,  able  to  select  and  combine  his 
material  for  the  most  effective  use.  Most  men  are 
narrow-minded.  They  think  in  a  groove.  Their  opin- 
ions are  prejudices.  If  such  men  are  ministers,  they 
seek  a  text  to  support  their  views,  not  to  enlighten 
their  minds.  We  have  attempted  to  describe  a  man 
of  totally  different  stamp,  one  who  searches  for  truth 
and  then  delivers  it  to  his  people ;  one  who  is  a  con- 
stant and  indefatigable  explorer  in  the  realm  of  reve- 
lation, ever  continuing  and  never  finishing  his  discov- 
eries ;  not  changing  and  abandoning  the  old,  but  ever 
adding  the  new  to  the  old,  knowing  that  truth  is  lim- 
itless. We  have  also  described  a  man  who  finds  his 
treasure-house  of  instruction  in  the  Bible  as  the  Book 
of  God.  In  this  regard  he  differs  from  those  who 
give  merely  moral  or  sentimental  lectures  on  current 
events  ;  who  discuss  economical  or  political  questions; 
who  pronounce  eulogies  on  deceased  or  living  states- 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES. 


43 


men ;  or  who  rhetorically  elaborate  picturesque 
themes.  All  these  performances  are  good  in  their 
place.  They  are  both  entertaining  and  useful.  They 
help  society  and  tend  to  refinement.  But  they  arc 
totally  apart  from  the  distinctive  work  of  the  Gospel 
preacher.  The  wonderful  revelation  of  God's  grace 
in  Christ  is  neither  so  limited  nor  so  light  as  to  need 
a  supplement  of  secular  topics  and  human  philosophy 
in  order  that  the  preacher  may  eke  out  his  functional 
duties  from  his  pulpit.  On  the  contrary,  the  field  of 
revealed  truth  is  so  vast,  and  its  importance  so  sur- 
passing, that  a  thousand  lifetimes  could  not  exhaust 
its  varied  presentation.  And,  moreover,  there  is  no 
other  truth  that  satisfies  the  cravings  of  the  soul. 
Other  truth  may  interest,  amuse,  refine,  educate,  but 
this  Bible  truth  alone  supplies  the  needy  heart  and 
brings  strength  to  the  weary  spirit.  It  is  God's  own 
living  touch  to  the  soul.  We  are  led  to  emphasize 
this  dependence  of  the  preacher  upon  the  Word  of 
God,  because  the  pulpit  is  in  danger  of  losing  this  its 
vital  principle  under  the  strong  pressure  of  the  worldly 
elements  of  society  that  have  penetrated  the  Church. 
A  congregation  is  too  often  guided  by  its  young  and 
worldly  members ;  and  at  their  demand  a  young  and 
popular  preacher  is  sought  rather  than  an  experi- 
enced pastor,  mighty  in  the  Scriptures.  The  out- 
ward adornments  of  the  orator  are  counted  at  the 
highest  value,  and  clever  satire,  like  that  of  the  Mid- 


44  THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHE  R. 

die  and  New  Comedy  of  the  Greeks,  elicits  the  ap- 
plause of  the  pews.  People  flock  to  the  church  where 
so  attractive  a  rhetorician  or  actor  preaches,  and  re- 
tire from  the  service  with  sentiments  and  conversa- 
tion akin  to  those  with  which  one  leaves  a  concert  or  a 
play.  Other  churches  now  seek  to  equal  this  so-called 
success.  Young  ministers  see  that  large  salaries  are 
offered  to  performers,  rather  than  to  preachers,  and 
begin  to  train  themselves'to  be  performers  also.  The 
Church  and  ministry  thus  reduce  themselves  to  the 
level  of  the  stage,  and  form  a  close  association  with 
the  irreligious  press,  which  now  begins  to  be  the 
counselor  and  guide  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 

The  whole  of  this  lamentable  degradation  of  the 
pulpit  begins  with  departure  from  the  Word  of  God — 
a  transmutation  of  the  preacher  from  the  proclaimer 
of  the  Divine  Oracles  to  the  caterer  to  public  taste. 
When  this  cardinal  error  is  committed,  there  is  no 
limit  to  the  folly  and  sin  that  may  ensue.  And  when 
the  degradation  is  begun  by  departure  from  the  Word 
of  God,  Satan  prepares  an  easy,  down-hill  road  through 
the  love  of  approbation  and  pecuniary  reward.  This 
is  an  age  when  attacks  upon  the  inspiration  of  God's 
Word  are  multiplied,  and  it  becomes  the  Church  to 
be  watchful  against  the  first  breaches  in  its  walls.  We 
should  have  and  use  a  Pauline  spirit  to  cut  off  at  once 
any  one  who  would  prostitute  the  pulpit  to  low  and 
carnal  ends,  and  who  would  thus  practically  adopt  the 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES.  45 

enemy's  slights  upon  God's  Word.  It  is  a  false  liber- 
ality that  would  admit  the  foes  of  truth  into  our  cita- 
del, and  so  give  up  all  that  is  distinctive  and  divine 
in  our  faith.  If  men  wish  to  make  light  of  God's 
Scriptures  and  to  exalt  "  modern  thought"  as  against 
them,  let  them  do  it  outside  of  the  Church,  where 
such  work  has  its  appropriate  place  ;  but  never  let  the 
Church,  through  its  official  courts  and  authorities, 
consent  to  foster  a  belittling  of  that  written  Word, 
on  the  full  inspiration  of  which  depends  the  Church's 
purity  and  power,  if  not  its  very  existence. 

2.  The  next  characteristic  of  a  preacher  that  we 
would  specially  mark  is  2i  sound  judgment.  His  acute, 
penetrating,  far-reaching  mind,  occupied  principally 
with  the  Word,  but  nevertheless  accustomed  to  a 
panoramic  view  of  men  and  things,  must  suit  its 
communications  to  the  characters  and  necessities  of 
the  occasion.  The  preacher  meets  sorrows  and  joys, 
adversity  and  prosperity  in  the  community  to  which 
he  ministers.  He  finds  prejudice  at  work,  arising 
from  envy  or  an  unwise  zeal.  He  has  before  him 
wealth,  that  blinds  the  moral  sense  and  covers  ir- 
regularities of  conduct,  or  the  pride  of  learning  that 
sees  error  in  definitions  rather  than  in  life,  or  fri- 
volity that  would  laugh  away  the  power  of  the  truth, 
or  religious  ardor  that  uses  questionable  methods  of 
operation,  or  apathy  that  is  most  moral  and  self- 
satisfied.     Before  these  various  forms  of  mind  he  is 


46  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

to  present  the  same  Gospel  in  its  varied  application. 
Unchanging  in  his  doctrine,  he  is,  nevertheless,  to 
assume  the  apostolic  position  of  being  all  things  to 
all  men.  For  this,  he  must  enter  into  thci}'  situation, 
as  well  as  understand  his  own.  He  must  sympathize 
with  them  in  their  temptations,  that  he  may  rightly 
choose  his  argument  and  counsel.  The  examples, 
the  precepts,  the  promises,  the  threatenings  of  the 
Word  are  adapted  to  every  form  of  human  experi- 
ence, and  the  wise  master  of  assemblies  fastens  his 
nails  in  the  right  places.  Tracts  on  dancing  are  not 
to  be  given  to  cripples.  A  process  of  selection  should 
precede  every  ministration  of  the  Word.  Nor  should 
the  preacher  content  himself  with  generalities,  as  suf- 
ficiently appropriate  for  all  at  all  times.  The  Bible 
is  particular  as  well  as  general.  It  says,  "  Thou  art 
the  man."  Moreover,  souls  are  waiting  to  be  spe- 
cially instructed.  They  are  seeking  for  light  on  a 
critical  portion  of  their  path,  and  by  them  it  should 
be  said,  "A  word  spoken  in  due  season,  how  good  is 
it!" 

In  order  to  accomplish  the  end  here  designated,  the 
preacher  must  have  a  healthy  judgment.  Out  of  an 
abundant  knowledge  he  must,  with  his  quick  pene- 
tration, compare,  select,  and  combine  for  the  occasion 
with  an  impartial  mind.  A  hobby  is  utterly  destruc- 
tive of  the  preacher's  power  for  good.  It  is  soon 
detected  as  a  hobby,  and  so  reveals  a  biased,  one- 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES.  47 

sided  mind  unfit  to  be  the  guide  and  teacher  of 
others.  The  very  truth,  if  truth  it  be,  that  is  so 
dwelt  on  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else,  is  made  distaste- 
ful to  the  hearer,  and  thus  the  very  opposite  effect  is 
produced  from  that  intended  by  the  preacher.  The 
preacher  who  is  a  hobby-rider  is  on  the  same  level 
as  the  physician  who  prescribes  one  medicine  for  all 
diseases.  He  soon  earns  the  reputation  of  a  quack, 
and  is  regarded  only  by  eccentric  and  weak  minds. 
The  good  physician  discriminates  between  diseases, 
and  from  his  abundant  pharmacopoeia  prescribes  ac- 
cording to  the  symptoms,  while  the  quack,  quite  set- 
tled in  his  a  priori  opinion  that  his  remedy  is  a 
panacea,  cares  not  to  examine  the  patient  or  to  form 
any  diagnosis. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  some  fundamental  doc- 
trines that  lie  at  the  basis  of  all  Christian  faith  and 
life,  and  these  can  not  be  too  strongly  insisted  on  ; 
but  it  may  be  as  truly  said,  that  if  even  these  are 
perpetually  presented  without  the  varied  efflorescence 
of  doctrine  that  belong  to  them,  the  result  is  a  dead- 
ening rather  than  a  quickening  of  the  thought  and 
feeling.  The  endless  variety  of  the  Bible  should 
preserve  a  preacher  from  such  an  error,  and  yet  it  is 
said  that  there  are  preachers  who  can  not  find  suffi- 
cient subjects  of  discourse  in  the  Bible,  and  who  by 
reason  of  this  famine  in  the  Holy  Land  go  down  into 
the  political  or  social  Egypt  to  find  themes. 


48 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


The  preacher's  work  from  the  pulpit  ought  to  be  a 
synthesis  and  enforcing  of  his  work  in  the  homes  of 
his  people.  If  he  be  a  pastor  (and  not  an  evangelist) 
the  experiences  with  which  he  meets  from  house  to 
house  will  fill  him  to  running  over  with  material  for 
counsel  and  instruction  from  the  Scriptures.  Every 
text  will  have  a  new  force  and  give  him  a  new  in- 
spiration. A  preacher  who  does  not  visit  his  people, 
not  only  draws  a  bow  at  a  venture  when  he  preaches, 
but  also  suffers  from  a  destitution  of  scriptural  and 
spiritual  ideas,  which  tempts  him  to  a  literary  miscel- 
lany ;  or,  if  he  have  not  literary  originality,  suggests 
to  him  the  use  of  the  sermons  of  others,  as  equally 
good  for  his  congregation  with  any  of  his  own,  which 
is  probably  the  case,  though  it  does  not  mend  the 
evil  of  the  matter.  What  a  congregation  needs  is 
not  merely  good  thoughts,  but  good  thoughts  welling 
up  fresh  from  a  living  soul — not  merely  Bible  truths, 
but  Bible  truths  held  forth  by  a  warm  and  earnest 
experience ;  and,  therefore,  a  fresh  and  warm  sermon 
spoken  from  a  good  man's  heart,  though  it  be  in- 
ferior in  style  and  argument,  is  far  more  adapted  to 
the  edification  of  an  audience  than  the  most  finished 
and  perfect  discourse  of  another  who  may  be  a  mas- 
ter in  sermonizing.  Why  do  we  have  sermons  at  all  ? 
Why  is  there  any  preaching?  Why  are  we  not  sat- 
isfied with  the  reading  of  God's  Word  ?  Is  it  not  be- 
cause we  need  a  personal  contact  of  soul  with  soul, 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES.  49 

which  the  Word  by  itself  can  not  furnish  ?  So  that 
(with  reverence  be  it  said)  even  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  can  not  take  the  place  of  human  discourse  in 
the  ministrations  of  a  preacher  in  the  Church  of 
Christ.  It  is  this  fact  and  principle  which  makes  the 
use  of  others'  sermons  an  evil  in  the  pulpit,  apart 
from  the  practical  falsehood  of  the  action  where  the 
preacher  does  not  announce  his  indebtedness. 

In  order,  then,  that  a  preacher  may  be  able  to  ex- 
ercise a  wise  judgment  in  preparing  for  his  people,  he 
must  know  them  personally  and  well,  and  so  be  guid- 
ed in  selection  of  Scripture  and  in  course  of  thought. 
The  sense,  on  the  part  of  the  people,  of  the  preach- 
er's sympathy  will  be  a  powerful  agent  of  impression 
and  conviction,  and  will  be  apt  to  prevent  their  occu- 
pation of  the  critic's  unbecoming  position. 

This  sound  judgment,  for  which  we  are  now  con- 
tending, is  the  same  as  that  which  we  call  tact,  if  we 
only  ally  it  with  a  severe  conscientiousness  and  high 
religious  duty.  Men  of  tact  are  not  plenty.  Whether 
it  be  laziness  or  a  native  and  irremediable  defect,  a 
very  large  number  of  our  fellow-men  are  clumsy  in 
their  attempted  adaptations.  They  may  be  men  of 
very  acute  and  analytic  thought,  prodigies  of  learning 
and  quick  in  the  detection  of  error  in  any  particular 
field  of  research,  and  yet  when  they  have  to  deal 
with  ineUj  and  are  called  upon  to  use  their  gifts  for 
some  objective  good,  they  are  stupid  and  bungling. 
3 


5  O         THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

Now,  a  preacher  has  conspicuously  to  deal  with  men. 
His  daily  work  is  with  men,  and  with  men  of  all  sorts. 
He  should  understand  human  nature  in  all  its  Protean 
phases.  It  should  be  a  second  nature  for  him  to 
adapt  himself  to  every  one  in  the  fitting  way. 

Now,  in  this  important  qualification  ministers  are 
proverbially  deficient.  The  defect  may  be,  and  doubt- 
less is,  exaggerated  by  malevolence,  but  that  there  is 
solid  ground  for  criticism  can  not  be  denied.  One  rea- 
son, and  perhaps  the  main  reason,  for  this  ministerial 
verdancy  (if  I  may  use  such  a  word),  is  the  ordinary 
style  of  our  Seminary  training.  It  is  a  cloister  life. 
The  student  is  secluded,  cut  off  from  the  busy  haunts 
of  men,  and  often  even  from  the  smaller  circles  of 
social  life ;  and  while  he  is  storing  his  mind  with 
knowledge  that  can  be  derived  from  books,  he  is 
gaining  no  knowledge  whatever  of  the  practical  life 
of  men  with  which  he  will  have  to  deal ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  he  is  forming  habits  that  will  render  it  the 
more  difficult  (sometimes  even  to  impossibility)  for 
him  ever  to  become  practically  acquainted  with  act- 
ual life. 

The  ordinary  minister  comes  out  of  the  Seminary 
an  imbecile.  He  may  be  a  good  scholar,  an  able 
reasoner,  a  devoted  servant  of  God,  but  his  place  is 
still  in  the  Seminary,  not  in  the  seething  cauldron 
of  the  world.  He  is  utterly  dazed  by  the  great  reali- 
ties around  him.     He  has  not  had  an  atom  of  prepa- 


MEA'TAL  PREREQUISITES.  51 

ration  for  this.  He  shows  such  a  weakness  in  meeting 
the  dashing  emergencies  of  life  that  the  world  loses 
respect  for  him.  How  many  ministers  will  tell  you 
that  they  spent  the  first  ten  years  of  their  ministry  in 
trying  to  orvercome  this  awkwardness.  There  arc 
some,  however,  who  continue  to  live  this  green  and 
ineffective  life  to  the  end,  and  the  only  pleasant  feat- 
ure in  the  matter  is  that  they  are  happily  unconscious 
of  their  own  defect.  It  is  a  good  sign  for  the  future, 
that  some  of  our  seminaries  are  seeing  the  impor- 
tance of  throwing  the  young  men  into  active  service, 
while  engaged  in  their  studies,  and  of  systematizing 
visitation,  exhortation,  and  philanthropic  supply  as 
parts  of  the  Seminary  course.  This  will  do  much 
toward  removing  the  present  reproach.  I  sometimes 
think  that  it  would  be  well  for  a  student  not  to  enter 
the  Seminary  till  he  is  thirty  years  old,  having  during 
the  preceding  years  become  acquainted  with  the 
various  styles  and  modes  of  men.  He  would  then 
begin  his  Seminary  course  with  a  clear  and  accurate 
idea  of  its  aim,  and  when  he  should  leave,  he  would 
know  how  to  use  all  his  powers  with  skill  and  exact- 
ness. 

It  is  because  young  men  are  so  ill-adapted  to  the 
inte  work  of  the  preacher  that  they  are  tempted  to 
substitute  a  false  work — a  mere  capture  of  itching 
ears,  and  so  lay  themselves  out  on  eloquence,  or 
poetry,  or  eccentricity,  as  passports  to  popular  favor. 


52 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


There  is  no  surer  way  to  make  the  ministry  a  trade 
than  to  send  forth  ministers  destitute  of  sound  judg- 
ment or  tact.  They  are  led  not  to  look  to  the  wants 
of  the  people,  but  to  the  mere  perfunctory  perform- 
ance of  public  duties,  which  they  may  strive  to  make 
attractive  as  possible  on  trade  account.  Even  where 
the  want  of  tact  is  counterbalanced  by  a  sincere  piety 
and  so  checked  from  seeking  secular  ends,  there  can 
be  little  or  no  edification,  for  edification  implies  a 
skilled  and  judicious  workman  laying  his  courses  by 
square  and  plummet  with  all  fitness  and  exactness. 
The  hap-hazard  tumbler-together  of  material  may 
heap  up,  but  scarcely  edify. 

The  preacher  who  lacks  sound  judgment  can  not 
gauge  the  amount  of  secular  material  that  is  neces- 
sary for  the  illustration  or  application  of  his  Script- 
ure, but  will  either,  by  using  too  little,  make  a  bald, 
abstract  discourse  without  any  adhering  qualities,  or 
will,  by  using  too  much,  wander  away  from  his  divine 
message  and  become  a  mere  secular  orator. 

We  can  not  sweepingly  say  that  politics  (for  ex- 
ample) are  not  to  be  brought  into  the  pulpit.  Such 
wholesale  assertions  on  one  side  lead  to  equally 
wholesale  assertions  on  the  other.  The  truth  lies 
between  the  two,  that  politics  or  any  other  secular 
subject  has  a  full  right  to  enter  the  pulpit,  whenever 
it  can  be  made  strictly  subservient  to  the  Bible  truth 
discussed  or  expounded.     A  preacher  may  illustrate 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES.  53 

his  subject  by  a  figure  drawn  from  the  planting  of 
seeds  and  their  watering,  but  a  discourse  on  kitchen 
gardening  would  be  wholly  unbecoming,  however 
useful  and  entertaining  it  might  be  made.  A  preacher 
may  apply  some  important  Bible  principle  to  our  use 
of  money  in  business  life,  but  a  treatise  on  tariffs  or 
any  other  question  of  finance  or  political  economy  is 
not  a  sermon.  A  sound  judgment  will  enable  the 
preacher  rightly  to  mingle  the  secular  and  biblical 
elements  of  his  discourse,  keeping  ever  in  mind  that 
he  stands  before  the  people,  not  to  give  forth  his  own 
philosophy,  but  to  communicate  the  revealed  Word 
of  God. 

3.  The  acuteness  of  perception  and  the  sound 
judgment,  which  we  have  now  insisted  upon  as  nec- 
essary for  the  Christian  preacher,  almost  implies  in- 
dustrial mental  habits.  And  yet,  in  strict  analysis, 
this  persistent  Industry  forms  a  separate  item  in  the 
qualifications  we  have  to  enumerate.  If  Hippocrates 
could  say,  "Art  is  long  and  Life  is  short"  in  the  in- 
troduction to  his  work  as  an  encouragement  to  ener- 
getic action  in  scientific  study,  we  may  use  the  same 
style  of  argument,  mutatis  mutandis,  for  an  incentive 
to  the  Christian  preacher  in  his  high  office  of  ex- 
pounding the  will  of  God.  Revelation  is  very  long 
and  very  broad  and  very  deep,  and  Life  is  very  short. 
There  is  no  time  to  waste.  The  man  who  does  not 
see  Revelation  and  Human  Life  in  this  proportionate 


5  4  THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

relation  is  unfit  to  be  a  minister  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
man  who  thinks  the  circle  of  biblical  knowledge  is 
soon  run  is  too  ignorant  to  lead  others.  The  soterial 
pith  of  the  Gospel  is  simple  and  soon  exhibited.  It 
is  all  contained  in  one  sentence :  "  God  so  loved  the 
world,  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that 
whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish,  but 
have  everlasting  life."  The  great  saving  truth  may 
flash  upon  the  needy  soul  and  give  it  new  life.  Blessed 
be  God  there  is  life  in  a  look  at  the  Crucified.  But 
the  oecodoinic  complement  of  the  Gospel  has  no  such 
narrow  bounds.  It  swells  out  to  a  limitless  extent. 
As  the  capacity  for  growth  develops  in  the  renewed 
heart,  the  materials  for  growth  are  presented  in  God's 
revelation,  the  Christ-stature  being  the  only  proper 
aim  of  the  Christian.  We  do  not  know  the  rationale 
of  growth  in  the  higher  world,  we  can  not  tell  the 
character  of  the  change  in  knowledge  that  will  be 
ours  on  entering  the  life  beyond  the  body,  but  we 
may  gather  from  the  teachings  of  the  Word  that,  the 
moral  quality  being  the  same  in  all  the  glorified,  the 
moral  quantity  will  follow  the  proportions  of  attain- 
ment here.  Nothing  is  clearer  than  the  fact  that 
this  life  is  the  basis  of  the  final  adjudication,  and 
that,  therefore,  any  slighting  of  this  life  as  a  mere 
moment  of  the  eternity,  with  the  notion  that  the 
great  future  must  make  all  even,  is  contrary  to  the 
constant  and  consistent  teaching  of  Scripture.     This 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES.  55 

life  is  the  basis  of  the  future  life,  not  only  In  the  dis- 
tinctions between  saint  and  sinner,  but  between  saint 
and  saint.  The  parables  of  the  talents  and  of  the 
pounds,  as  illustrating  the  principle  "  to  him  that 
hath  shall  be  given,"  evidently  as  between  this  world 
and  the  world  to  come,  are  in  harmony  with  many 
didactic  statements  of  the  Word  to  the  same  effect. 

This  being  so,  a  building  up  of  the  soul  here  in  the 
truth  is  in  the  highest  sense  a  building  for  eternity. 

No  preacher  can  take  this  view  of  Christian  edifica- 
tion without  having  impressed  upon  his  mind  the 
necessity  of  untiring  industry  on  his  part  as,  under 
God,  an  Edifier  of  the  Church.  As  the  Church  is  to 
grow  through  Jiis  growing,  he  can  not  be  too  diligent 
in  adding  to  his  faith  knowledge.  He  has  a  troop 
behind  him,  and  their  march  depends  upon  his. 

He  should  never  picture  for  himself  a  life  of  ease. 
He  should  never  say,  "  How  can  I  get  most  vacation 
and  least  work  ? "  which  is  the  appropriate  question 
of  a  heartless  hireling ;  but  he  should  say  from  the 
depths  of  affection  for  his  work,  "  How  can  I  take 
the  least  vacation  consistent  with  physical  health?" 
The  phrases  *' a  comfortable  living"  and  "a  fat  pas- 
torate" are  brought  to  the  front  all  too  often  in  the 
minds  of  Christian  ministers,  and  ecclesiastical  sine- 
cures are  a  travesty  of  holy  things.  Does  a  Hum- 
boldt or  a  Le  Verrier  in  his  scientific  course  seek  to 
gain  long  vacations,  and  shall  Christ's  preachers  show 


56  THE  CHRISTIAN  PRE  A  CHER. 

less  enthusiasm  for  their  heavenly  science  than  these 
explorers  of  physical  nature  ? 

The  eager  use  of  as  much  time  as  he  can  get  for 
his  holy  work  should  mark  the  Christian  preacher,  a 
work  whose  very  variety  will  check  the  inroads  of  fa- 
tigue, and  afford  in  itself  the  elements  of  the  truest 
recreation.  For  a  preacher  to  get  the  reputation  of 
an  idler  is  to  prejudice  the  holy  vocation  through  his 
apparent  insincerity.  He  can  not  himself  have  a  pro- 
found sense  of  the  human  need  of  the  Gospel,  or,  on 
the  other  hand,  of  the  mighty  power  of  the  Gospel, 
if  he  is  listless  in  the  use  of  his  office  or  degrades  it 
to  a  perfunctory  ritual.  Apart,  too,  from  this  view 
of  the  necessity  of  ministerial  industry,  is  the  argu- 
ment of  dignified  example  to  men  in  all  vocations 
that  a  preacher  should  exhibit.  If  he  occupy  the 
place  in  the  regard  of  the  community  which  his  work 
and  office  bespeak  for  him,  he  will  be  naturally  quoted 
as  an  example  in  all  the  moral  characteristics  of  his 
life.  An  idle  minister  will  promote  idleness  in  his 
parish,  and  a  busy  minister  will  promote  industry 
among  his  people. 

But  we  are  now  looking  at  this  quality  of  Industry 
rather  from  an  intellectual  than  a  moral  stand-point. 
We  are  insisting  that  the  preacher's  mind  should  be 
ever  busy,  searching,  comparing,  judging,  combining, 
formulating,  illustrating  in  that  truth  which  has  reve- 
lation as  its  basis,  and  for  its  aim  the  sanctification  of 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES.  57 

mankind.  Of  course,  this  industry  is  to  be  the  result 
of  the  highest  enthusiasm  for  the  work,  the  most 
thorough  consecration  to  the  Saviour  himself ;  but 
of  this  we  shall  speak  at  another  time.  We  have 
now  only  the  quality  itself  to  note,  as  one  of  the 
habits  of  mind,  without  which  no  man  should  ever 
enter  the  pulpit  and  be  saluted  as  a  guide  in  the 
Church  of  Christ. 

Closely  allied  with  industry  should  be  system,  that 
methodical  use  of  the  intellect  by  which  the  most 
ground  can  be  covered,  and  the  most  sa'tisfactory 
work  achieved.  It  is  the  help-meet  to  Industry,  giv- 
ing to  it  a  force  and  character,  where  otherwise  there 
might  be  the  ragged  form  of  waste  and  failure.  It 
is  the  scientific  principle,  which  every  true  worker 
should  recognize  in  his  practice,  and  with  which  he 
may  have  the  exquisite  happiness  of  feeling  his  effect- 
ive strength. 

Without  system  he  will  repeat  himself;  will  degen- 
erate into  rhapsody  or  commonplace  ;  will  present 
(as  well  as  hold)  confused  notions ;  will  sparkle  rather 
than  shine ;  will  excite  rather  than  warm. 

A  favorite  fallacy  with  some  is  to  trust  to 
what  they  call  genius,  which  is  simply  a  practical 
defiance  to  the  invariable  laws  of  mind.  The  so- 
called  "genius"  is  a  master  of  some  smart  trick  by 
which  wonder  is  excited.  He  is  a  pulpit  Paganini, 
playing  on  one  string,  and  counting  the  approbation 
3* 


5  8  THE  CHRIS  riA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

of  his  audience  as  a  proof  of  the  classic  excellence  of 
his  music.  The  "genius"  never  has  to  prepare  his 
sermons.  He  inbreathes  them  from  Nature  during 
the  week,  and  outbreathes  them  on  Sunday  without 
effort.  He  believes  that  industry  and  system  were 
meant  only  for  dull  and  heavy  minds,  and  that  men- 
tal superiority  is  shown  by  mental  carelessness.  The 
"genius"  considers  eccentricity  to  be  power  and  a 
concourse  to  be  success.  He  knows  by  natural  ab- 
sorption, where  others  have  to  study,  and  he  scorns 
method  as  a  bird  would  scorn  a  ladder. 

We  hold,  with  all  due  deference  to  these  gifted 
men,  that  nothing  is  of  much  value  that  is  not  ob- 
tained by  labor,  that  God  has  established  the  law  of 
mental  labor  in  man  as  against  instinct  in  the  brute 
creation,  that  hence  knowledge  is  proportioned  to  in- 
dustry, and  that,  outside  of  inspiration,  an  unstudied 
knowledge  is  both  shallow  and  erroneous. 

It  is  the  laborious  thinker  who  is  rewarded  with 
great  discoveries  of  truth — truth  that  may  have  been 
often  discovered  by  others,  but  is  none  the  less  a  new 
discovery  to  each  profound  explorer.  The  gain  of  a 
grand  truth  from  God's  revelation  in  this  way  gives  a 
new  strength  to  the  preacher  in  his  whole  work  as  the 
conductor  or  communicator  of  truth  to  others ;  for  the 
intcrweavings  and  natural  support  of  all  truth  regard- 
ing God's  grace  to  man  are  so  universal  that  light  on 
one  affects  the  whole  circle.     It  is  this  fact  which 


MENTAL  PREREQUISITES.  eg 

makes  a  "system  of  theology"  a  most  natural  and 
rational  product  of  Bible  study,  against  which  some 
love  to  inveigh  with  much  talk  of  ''bigotry"  and 
"  Procrustean  beds." 

Contradictions  are  no  more  possible  in  revelation 
than  in  nature,  and  to  assert  the  contrary  is  merely  to 
aim  a  covert  blow  at  revelation  itself.  And  if  there 
are  no  contradictions  in  revelation,  and  all  revelation 
has  human  sanctification  as  its  object,  a  connected 
scheme  of  the  whole  becomes  a  necessity  to  its  true 
understanding.  A  theology  without  a  system  con- 
tains in  this  its  own  condemnation.  It  is  a  house  di- 
vided against  itself,  and  can  not  stand.  Our  fathers 
in  framing  symbols,  creeds,  or  confessions,  were  not 
departing  from,  but  conforming  to,  the  leadings  of 
God  as  made  known  both  in  His  Word  and  in  the 
structure  of  the  human  mind. 

The  revolutionary  spirit  in  the  churches  that  in- 
dulges in  flings  at  such  systematic  teaching  is  gener- 
ally found  connected  with  a  withdrawal  from  the  su- 
pernatural, and  a  desire  to  merge  distinctive  Christian- 
ity in  natural  religion.  It  is  not  so  much  an  attack 
upon  system,  as  it  is  upon  system  in  revelation.  The 
assailants  admit  system  in  science  and  in  philosophy, 
nay,  earnestly  contend  for  this  as  a  necessity,  but  rev- 
elation only  must  be  unconnected  and  unconnectable. 
You  will  almost  always  find  the  sneer  at  creeds  coup- 
led with  a  great  exaltation  of  humanity  and  confi- 


6o  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

dence  in  the  native  instincts  of  the  race.  So  that  I 
believe  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  at  the  bottom  of 
every  assault  upon  systematic  theology  is  a  repug- 
nance to  the  written  Word  of  God. 

The  supernatural  and  the  natural  are  alike  addressed 
to  man  as  a  rational  creature,  and  the  processes  of  his 
mind  toward  each  should  be  the  same.  There  is  a 
science  of  God's  dealings  with  our  fallen  race,  as 
there  is  a  science  of  His  dealings  with  our  bodies, 
and  a  true  theology  will  be  subject  to  the  same  sub- 
jective methods  as  a  true  physiology. 

It  is  because  theology  is  a  science  of  vast  propor- 
tions, and  because  the  preacher  must  be  a  theologian, 
that  we  lay  down  our  proposition  that  a  true  preacher 
must  be  a  man  of  severe  and  systematic  mental 
industry. 


GENERAL   KNOWLEDGE. 
ARGUMENTATIVE    POWER. 


LECTURE     III. 

My  last  lecture  was  devoted  to  a  survey  of  the 
mental  prerequisites  of  a  Christian  preacher,  and  in 
it  I  endeavored  to  show  that  he  must  be  a  man  above 
his  fellows  in  acuteness  of  the  mental  eye,  in  sound 
judgment  or  tact,  and  in  a  systematic  industry. 
There  are  two  further  qualifications  which  I  would 
add  in  this  series ;  the  first  is,  the  possession  of  Gen- 
eral Knowledge. 

An  unlearned  or  illiterate  ministry  is  already  ex- 
cluded by  our  former  positions,  for  no  one  possessing 
an  acute  and  industrious  mind  could  be  unlearned  or 
illiterate.  We  are  not,  therefore,  arguing  against  an 
illiterate  ministry  under  this  head  of  general  knowl- 
edge, but  are  demanding  of  an  educated  ministry 
that  they  maintain  an  interest  in  the  general  advance 
of  human  knowledge,  so  far  as  to  appreciate  state- 
ments and  arguments  in  any  of  its  branches,  and  to 
converse  understandingly  and  effectively  regarding 
any.  In  other  words,  we  contend  for  a  college-bred 
ministry  as  against  those  preachers  who  have  dodged 
the  college  in  their  haste  to  enter  the  pulpit,  and  to 
whom  indulgent  councils  or  presbyteries  have  given 

a  dispensation  as  regards   general  knowledge.     We 

(63) 


64  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

do  not  say  that  there  may  not  be  positions  of  official 
usefulness  in  the  Church  for  the  under- educated, 
positions  even  of  instruction  and  exhortation,  but 
we  hold  that  these  should  be  in  some  way  subordi- 
nate to  the  position  of  the  authorized  expounder  of 
Scripture  and  its  theology.  The  heads  of  authori- 
tative statement  should  be  the  peers  of  the  learned, 
but  the  mistakes  and  deficiencies  of  the  inferior 
teachers  may  be  allowed  without  serious  loss. 

The  preacher  will  have  little  influence  in  inculcat- 
ing rehgious  truth,  if  he  is  known  as  a  blunderer  in 
the  elements  of  science.  Such  men  can  only  min- 
ister successfully  in  holy  things  to  those  who  are  as 
ignorant  as  themselves.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
preacher  as  with  the  Bible  itself.  If  the  Bible  teaches 
false  science  and  false  philosophy,  it  can  not  be 
trusted  for  a  right  theology.  The  Satanism  that  is 
ever  seeking  to  hold  up  the  science  of  the  Bible  as 
primitive,  and  therefore  barbarous,  with  the  apolo- 
getic formula  that  the  Bible  is  not  given  to  teach  us 
science,  knows  this  well.  It  well  knows  that  if  the 
Bible  is  made  to  be  a  book  of  scientific  blunders,  it 
will  no  longer  be  a  book  of  religious  authority.  Any 
doctrine  of  inspiration  that  is  of  positive  value  is 
utterly  gone  on  such  a  hypothesis.  It  is  here  where 
infidelity  is  concentrating  her  forces  and  making  her 
deadliest  attack  on  the  Church  of  Christ.  The  re- 
ligious teacher  who  is  ignorant  of  the  great  principles 


GENERAL  KNOWLEDGE.  65 

of  science  or  the  facts  of  general  knowledge  in  his- 
tory, geography,  and  literature,  will  suffer  this  same 
collapse  of  authority.  He  can  no  more  be  a  leader, 
and  men  will  listen  to  him,  not  to  receive  his  instruc- 
tions, but  to  criticise  his  errors. 

Without  this  general  knowledge,  he  is,  moreover, 
unable  to  illustrate  truth  pointedly  and  entertain- 
ingly. The  metaphor,  simile,  and  analogy  which  play 
so  important  a  part  in  all  public  speaking  to  the  gen- 
eral mind,  should  be  drawn  from  a  copious  reservoir 
containing  a  large  variety,  and  to  this  end  the 
preacher  should  have  his  mind  well  informed  in  the 
various  departments  of  knowledge  which  are  repre- 
sented in  the  members  of  his  congregation,  as  well  as 
in  those  which  are  unknown  to  them,  and  yet  might 
furnish  apt  elucidations  of  important  truth.  The 
homely  illustrations  drawn  from  the  trades  and  occu- 
pations of  men,  as  well  as  the  illustrations  from  the 
discoveries  of  physical  science,  are  equally  potent  to 
arrest  the  attention  and  to  secure  the  memory.  The 
study  of  nature  is  a  fruitful  source  of  this  power,  and 
every  preacher  should  be  a  close  observer  of  animate 
and  inanimate  life.  The  greater  the  variety  that  is 
ready  at  the  subject's  call,  the  more  interesting  will 
be  the  presentation  of  the  more  recondite  truth. 
Men  are  taught  best,  as  children  are,  by  object  les- 
sons, and  if  the  object  may  not  be  actually  seen,  it 
can  be  described.     A  sermon  of  mere  abstractions 


66  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

may  do  for  the  trained  thinker,  but  as  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  men  are  not  trained  thinkers,  it  is  most  im- 
portant to  reduce  the  abstract  as  far  as  possible  to 
the  concrete. 

When  I  speak  of  the  preacher  being  a  student  of 
nature,  I  do  not  mean  that  he  is  to  be  the  interpreter 
of  nature  to  his  people,  or  that  he  is  to  become  a 
teacher  of  natural  history,  nor  do  I  mean  that  he  is 
to  dravv'  his  subjects  from  nature ;  I  mean  that  he  is 
to  confine  his  use  of  his  naturalist's  knowledge  to  the 
apt  and  easy  illustration  of  truths,  which,  in  the  first 
instance,  he  takes  directly  and  only  from  the  Holy 
Scriptures.  Poets  may  find  sermons  in  stones  and 
books  in  running  brooks,  but  the  preacher  has  a  far 
higher  and  holier  field  in  which  to  find  his  discourses. 
It  is  often  said  of  this  or  that  preacher  that  he  gets 
his  sermons  from  the  fields  and  streams.  Alas !  for  the 
people  that  are  fed  on  such  a  diet !  If  the  book  of 
Nature  were  sufficient  for  man's  wants,  the  book  of 
Revelation  would  not  have  been  written.  If  mount- 
ains and  trees  could  enlighten  dark  souls  with  the 
rays  of  salvation,  prophets  and  apostles  were  super- 
fluous. Let  us  keep  Chimborazo  and  the  sycamore 
in  their  appropriate  place.  A  religion  that  knows  no 
sin  and  no  Saviour  may  find  all  its  nutritive  aliment 
in  physical  nature  ;  but  a  religion  that  ministers  to 
minds  and  hearts  diseased  must  have  an  articulate 
voice  from  God — must  reveal  and  not  suggest,  must 


GENERAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


67 


convert  and  not  gratify.  The  religion  of  Nature  as 
found  among  men  is  a  sentiment  and  not  a  force,  a 
poetry  and  not  a  truth.  It  goes  not  as  deep  as  sin, 
it  reaches  not  as  high  as  heaven.  It  occupies  the 
aesthetic  zone  of  feehng  and  experience,  and  leaves 
the  soul  where  it  found  it,  in  the  entanglements  of 
moral  evil. 

The  preacher  is  to  beware  of  this  anti-gospel,  and 
to  make  his  familiarity  with  Nature's  manifold  ways 
and  wonders  simply  a  servant  and  adjuvant  to  his 
expositions  of  the  written  Word.  If  he  so  use  this 
varied  knowledge,  he  will  find  remarkable  analogies 
between  the  kingdoms  of  nature  and  grace,  and  will 
follow  our  Lord's  own  method  of  enforcing  the 
highest  truth  by  their  use. 

This  general  knowledge  is  by  no  means  to  be  the 
searching  and  minute  knowledge  of  the  specialist. 
Life  is  too  short  for  such  exploits  on  the  part  of  the 
preacher.  One  can  take  a  bird's-eye  view  of  a  science, 
understand  its  main  lines  of  investigation,  note  the 
extent  of  its  discoveries,  and  be  able  to  appreciate  its 
importance  and  judge  of  its  comparative  value  with- 
out being  a  scientist.  So  can  one  have  a  general  view 
of  comparative  histoiy  and  be  able  to  follow  any 
treatise  that  discusses  any  of  its  branches  philo- 
sophically, while  yet  wholly  unable  to  be  a  historian 
in  the  lecture-room.  It  is  a  possible  and  enviable 
power  that  collects  the  results  of  human  thought  and 


68  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

investigation  and  stores  it  all  in  proper  order  in  the 
mind  for  effective  use  ;  and  this  power  is  wholly  apart 
from  the  scientist's  close,  consecutive,  and  micro- 
scopic analysis  of  his  specialty.  This  general  knowl- 
edge enables  the  possessor  to  be  a  correct  and  com- 
petent judge  in  the  reasonings  of  scientific  men, 
while  he  may  be  utterly  ignorant  of  the  merits  of 
the  discoveries  themselves.  The  moment  the  scien- 
tist enters  the  syllogistic  field,  he  is  only  on  an 
equality  with  the  unscientific  thinker.  In  his  inves- 
tigations and  classifications  the  unscientific  thinker 
can  not  follow  him,  but  the  moment  a  result  is  pro- 
claimed, it  is  common  property,  and  the  scientist  has 
no  special  claim  to  its  management  in  argument. 
This  thought  should  keep  all  young  students  for  the 
ministry  from  the  false  idea  of  mastering  geology, 
astronomy,  and  physiology,  in  order  to  answer  the 
objections  to  revelation  from  those  sources.  With" 
all  the  laborious  details  of  those  sciences  the  contro- 
versy has  nothing  to  do,  but  only  with  their  accred- 
ited results,  and  these  can  be  readily  summed  up  and 
used  by  the  theologian.  I  have  known  young  men 
to  waste  their  time  and  imperil  their  stability  by  go- 
ing abroad  to  study  science  in  Germany  as  prepara- 
tory to  the  work  of  the  Gospel  ministry.  They 
turned  from  Nineveh  to  Tarshish,  and  brought  up 
at  last  in  the  darkness  of  the  whale's  belly. 

The  general  knowledge,  for  which  we  contend,  is 


ARGUMENTA  TIVE  PO  WER.  69 

to  be  obtained  first  and  principally  by  a  regular  col- 
lege education  with  the  old  curriculum  of  classics, 
mathematics,  science,  and  philosophy ;  and,  secondly, 
by  a  systematic  course  of  judicious  reading  on  the 
part  of  the  preacher,  by  which  he  keeps  fully  abreast 
of  the  age.  The  daily  newspaper  is  a  necessary  part 
of  this  training,  not  simply  as  furnishing  the  facts  of 
the  day,  but  also  as  showing  the  influence  and  im- 
pression of  those  facts. 

The  second  qualification  I  have  to  add  to  those 
discussed  in  the  previous  lecture  is  Argiuncntative 
Power.  A  man  may  be  acute  and  rapid  in  his 
thoughts,  may  be  judicious  in  his  adaptations,  and 
may  be  rich  in  general  knowledge,  while  yet  he  may 
be  deficient  in  constructing  a  course  of  reasoning. 
He  may  arrive  at  his  own  conclusions  by  a  species 
of  intuition,  or  at  least  by  a  reasoning  he  can  not 
himself  remember  or  analyze,  and  be  utterly  incom- 
petent to  translate  the  method  to  others. 

Now,  a  very  large  part  of  the  preacher's  work  is 
argumentative.  God  in  His  Word  reasons  with  man. 
His  holy  service  is  a  reasonable  service,  and  every 
man  should  be  able  to  give  a  reason  for  the  hope 
that  is  in  him.  Men  are  to  be  convinced,  for  it  is  the 
truth  that  makes  men  free  from  the  bondage  of  sin 
and  condemnation,  and  conviction  is  the  result  of  ar- 
gument. The  heart  can  be  impressed  and  the  life 
changed  only  where  the  reason  is  convinced,  and. 


70 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


however  ignorant  a  man  may  be  of  "  Barbara  Cela- 
rent,"  he  is  moved  by  syllogistic  processes.  A  mere 
declamation  or  rhapsody  carries  no  converting  power 
with  it,  however  it  may  excite  or  inflame  the  mind. 
There  must  be  truth  as  the  initiative  of  all  true  life, 
and  all  truth  runs  in  rational  forms.  When  we  say  the 
argumentative  preacher  is  the  convincing  preacher, 
we  are  not  advocating  a  dry  skeleton  argument  for 
a  sermon.  Far  from  it.  We  have  already  endeav- 
ored to  show  that  variety  of  illustration  should  mark 
every  discourse.  Not  only  should  the  joints  be  per- 
fect, but  the  flesh  and  skin  should  exhibit  the  fullness 
and  outlines  of  health  and  beauty.  The  argument 
will  be  the  more  cogent  when  thus  adorned,  and  the 
adornment  will  be  the  more  satisfying  when  beneath 
it  is  recognized  the  solid  structure  of  a  correct  and 
complete  argument.  The  preacher  will  thus  often 
conceal  his  argument  while  making  it,  but,  neverthe- 
less, the  argument  is  there,  and  the  efficient  force  of 
the  sermon,  ceteris  paribus,  will  be  in  proportion  to 
the  value  of  the  argument. 

A  false  argument  only  weakens  a  cause.  It  is  sup- 
posed to  be  one  of  the  chosen  defenses  of  a  position, 
and  as  the  hearer  perceives  its  weakness,  he  despises 
the  position,  as  seen  by  him  only  through  its  false 
representative.  Christianity  has  often  had  need  to 
ask  to  be  delivered  from  its  friends.  Shallow  minds 
have  undertaken  to  prop  it  up  with  ridiculous  sup- 


ARGUMENTA  TIVE  PO  WER.  7 1 

ports  from,  false  science  and  imperfect  inductions, 
and  have  thus  made  the  truth  and  themselves  a 
laughing-stock.  There  are  hackneyed  fallacies  that 
arc  found  continually  floating  about,  which  preachers 
of  small  caliber  use  as  their  effective  shot  against  the 
enemy's  bulwarks,  but  which  by  their  imbecility  con-, 
firm  the  enemy  in  his  position.  They  seem  to  have  a 
charmed  life.  The  demonstration  of  their  weakness  has 
no  effect  upon  their  use.  These  fallacies  may  be  theo- 
logical or  more  strictly  philosophical,  but  in  either  case 
they  injure  the  cause  they  are  intended  to  subserve. 

For  example,  when  Christianity  is  proved  to  be  the 
truth,  because  of  its  rapid  progress  against  Paganism, 
the  thoughtful  hearer  remembers  that  Mohammedan- 
ism spreads  still  more  rapidly  than  Christianity,  and 
is  led  to  see  in  Mohammedanism  greater  evidence  of 
truth  than  in  Christianity.  When  it  is  taught  that 
conscience  is  the  voice  of  God  in  the  man,  and  then 
the  heathen  conscience  is  found  casting  children  into 
the  Ganges,  the  truth  suffers  by  the  conflict  of  state- 
ment and  fact.  So,  when  Bible  texts  are  used  out  of 
their  meaning,  the  matter  supported  by  the  quotation 
is  only  imperilled,  not  promoted.  How  constantly 
we  hear  from  ardent  Temperance  orators,  preachers 
of  the  Gospel,  the  offensive  ''  touch  not,  taste  not, 
handle  not,"  branded  by  the  apostle  as  a  motto  of  a 
false  religion,  repeated  as  a  divine  command  to  ab- 
stain from  wine ! 


72 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


A  careful  arguerwill  allow  himself  no  false  advantage, 
well  knowing  that  such  an  advantage  is  no  advantage 
to  the  truth.  He  will  give  his  adversary  all  the  bene- 
fit his  position  can  justly  claim,  so  that  he  may  feel 
that  truth  and  not  cunning  is  dealing  with  him,  and 
that  his  retreat  and  defeat  are  not  to  be  reversed. 
One  who  thus  conducts  an  argument,  however  ear- 
nest he  maybe,  is  not  led  into  harshness  of  expression 
or  roughness  of  temper,  but  is  calm  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  his  strength.  I  speak  of  "  adversary,"  because 
the  unconvicted  man  is  naturally  an  adversary  of  the 
Gospel,  and  brings  a  captious  and  critical  mind  to 
the  hearing.  Moreover,  all  exhortation  implies  a 
possible  existence  in  the  minds  of  those  exhorted, 
which  is  to  be  overcome  by  the  argumentative  force 
of  the  exhortation.  But  the  fact  that  the  hearer  is 
to  be  regarded  as  an  adversary,  does  not  imply  that 
any  hostile  element  exists  in  the  relation  of  preacher 
to  people,  or  that  any  offensive  expressions  are  war- 
rantable in  the  discourse.  Scolding,  denunciation, 
sneer,  and  satire  are  always  inappropriate  in  him  who 
should  be  endeavoring  to  draw  people  to  Christ,  and, 
for  this  end,  to  draw  people  to  himself.  Prophets 
and  apostles  may,  as  inspired  guides,  use  a  severity 
of  tone  and  expression  which  is  utterly  unbecoming 
the  uninspired  Christian  minister.  There  have  been 
preachers  who  have  usurped  these  prerogatives  of 
the  prophets  and  have  used  the  pulpit  as  a  forge  for 


ARGUMENTATIVE  POWER.  y^ 

thunder-bolts,  but  the  hick  of  authority  has  been  so 
apparent  to  any  but  the  most  ignorant  and  supersti- 
tious, that  the  thunder-bolt  has  generally  proved  a 
boomerang,  and  knocked  over  its  projector. 

We  here  rest  our  description  of  the  mental  qualifi- 
cations of  the  preacher.  Let  us  recapitulate.  We 
have  asserted  that  in  the  make  and  make-up  of  his 
mind,  he  must  be  acute  and  ready,  of  quick  and  broad 
discernment  regarding  Scripture  truth  and  its  con- 
nections ;  that  he  must  have  a  sound  judgment  in 
order  rightly  and  seasonably  to  apply  the  truth ;  that 
he  must  have  regular  and  industrious  habits  propor- 
tioned to  the  great  extent  and  importance  of  the 
truth  he  serves  ;  that  he  should  acquaint  himself  with 
the  general  outlines  of  human  knowledge  ;  and,  finally, 
should  wield  an  argument  with  precision  and  power. 

In  thus  describing  the  mind  of  a  preacher,  I  am 
fully  aware  I  am  setting  up  a  high  standard.  The 
standard  ought  to  be  high.  Well  might  angels  envy 
the  office  of  the  Christian  preacher,  and  so  exalted  a 
station  demands  no  ordinary  mind.  But  while  insist- 
ing on  so  full  an  intellectual  character,  I  would  not 
hold  it  up  as  a  check  to  the  holy  aspirations  of  the 
young.  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  characteristics 
enumerated  must  be  congenital.  Men  are  born  unfit 
to  be  ministers.  No  degree  of  training,  no  amount 
of  piety  could  adapt  them  to  the  work.  But  some 
of  these  characteristics,  on  the  contrar}-,  are  cultiva- 


74 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


ble.  A  clear  view  of  what  is  necessary,  and  a  godly 
determination  to  make  the  due  preparation,  will  ac- 
complish the  end.  I  would  earnestly  urge  strong 
and  broad-minded  men  to  enter  the  ministry.  The 
Church  needs  them,  the  world  needs  them,  and,  I  be- 
lieve, Christ  calls  them.  We  have  not  too  many 
ministers.  They  should  be  multiplied  a  hundred- 
fold. We  have  too  many  unfit  ministers ;  too  many 
who  do  not  possess  the  qualities  that  have  been  dis- 
cussed ;  too  many  who  are  mere  foragers  for  a  sus- 
tenance, or  creatures  of  circumstance  ;  too  many  pro- 
fessional flats  who  weary  the  Church  and  disgust  the 
world ;  too  many  in  the  pulpit  who  were  intended 
for  sextons.  Because  many  of  these  either  abuse  the 
office  or  are  seen  drifting  aimlessly  on  the  surface  of 
society,  the  notion  has  gained  currency  that  there 
was  a  surfeit  of  ministers  in  the  Church,  and  a  style 
of  reasoning  has  been  used  regarding  the  ministiy 
and  its  numbers,  which  only  befits  the  matter  of 
trades  and  professions  that  have  money  as  their  end, 
but  which  has  no  place  in  the  question  of  the  means 
of  growth  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  The  Church  can 
never  have  too  many  ministers.  Would  God  that 
all  the  Lord's  people  were  prophets !  It  is  not  a 
question  of  dollars,  but  of  spiritual  need  ;  and  until 
the  millennial  day  at  least,  there  can  not  be  too 
many  set  apart  to  convert  the  heathen  and  edify 
the  Church. 


ARGUMENTA  TIVE  PO  WER.  75 

But  while  thus  regarding  the  ranks  of  the  ministry 
as  never  too  full,  I  believe  it  is  a  sad  mistake  to  sup- 
pose you  can  make  a  minister  out  of  any  pious  mate- 
rial. The  ofifice  requires  men  of  the  highest  ability. 
The  building  of  God's  spiritual  tabernacle  must  be 
intrusted  not  to  any  who  offer,  but  to  the  Bezaleels 
and  Aholiabs,  who  have  been  prepared  by  God  with 
natural  gifts  adapted  to  the  holy  and  delicate  work. 
Parents,  friends,  teachers,  the  Church,  the  college,  the 
seminary  can  judge  regarding  this,  even  when  the 
young  man  can  not,  and,  perhaps,  often  these  coun- 
selors will  be  able  to  encourage  the  student  where  his 
own  diffidence  would  dissuade  him. 

I  well  know  that  many  will  assert  that  I  am  laying 
too  great  stress  on  the  intellectual  culture  of  the 
preacher,  but  when  I  remember  he  is  to  be  didanrmo'^, 
and  that  in  the  highest  of  sciences ;  and  when  I  re- 
member that  even  for  a  lower  position  in  Church 
office  men  were  (by  apostolic  command)  to  be  chosen, 
who  were  not  only  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  but  also 
of  wisdom,  I  can  not  believe  in  an  under-educated 
ministry.  We  may  have  subordinate  workers  under 
ministerial  guidance — the  more  the  better ;  but  those 
who  are  to  be  the  supreme  directors  of  religious 
instruction  and  the  recognized  interpreters  and  illus- 
trators of  revealed  truth,  must  be  such  as  to  com- 
mand the  confidence  of  the  Church  and  of  the  world, 
not  only  in  their  moral  integrity,  but  in  their  wisdom 
and  knowledge. 


76  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

And  this  is  what  we  mean  by  a  learned  ministry. 
We  are  not  restricting  the  privilege  and  duty  of  call- 
ing men  to  repentance  and  to  Christ  to  a  few.  This 
prerogative  belongs  to  every  believer.  With  his  own 
rescue  from  Satan  came  the  commission :  "  Go  and 
tell  thy  friends  how  great  things  the  Lord  hath  done 
for  thee,  and  hath  had  compassion  upon  thee."  Every 
believer  has  the  right,  and  upon  him  rests  the  charge 
to  do  all  he  can  to  spread  the  saving  knowledge  of 
his  Lord.  But  this  consideration  is  wholly  different 
from  the  question  of  the  ministry,  which  latter  in- 
volves an  official  relation  to  the  Church  and  a  repre- 
sentative relation  to  the  world.  Those  divisions  of 
the  Church  which  have  not  practically  noted  this  dis- 
tinction, have  often  degraded  the  Gospel  and  pre- 
sented it  in  a  false  light  before  men.  Its  dignity  and 
truth  have  been  alike  sacrificed,  and  converts  have 
multiplied  only  at  the  cost  of  Christianity  itself. 

As  I  have  already  said,  the  fishermen  of  Galilee 
became  learned  men  before  they  were  sent  forth  on 
their  life  ministry.  They  were  already  men  of  supe- 
rior minds  when  they  were  selected  by  the  Master. 
The  apostle  Paul,  who  serves  as  an  example  of  what 
a  Christian  preacher,  not  of  the  Saviour's  own  per- 
sonal training,  should  be,  was  a  man  of  large  powers 
and  extensive  erudition.  In  vain  do  we  search  the 
New  Testament  to  find  a  preacher  of  mediocre  tal- 
ents, and  the  earliest  uninspired  historj'  of  the  Church 
affords  the  same  difficulty.  The  introduction  of  a  dull- 


ARGUMENTA  TIVE  PO  WER.  yy 

minded  or  scmi-cducatcd  ministry  into  the  Church,  is 
one  of  the  many  departures  from  the  primitive  system 
which  have  deformed  and  crippled  its  development, 
and  against  which  it  becomes  us  to  contend  resolutely. 
We  can  not  follow  too  closely  the  pattern  shown  us 
in-  the  mount  of  apostolic  administration,  preserving 
both  the  strictness  and  simplicity  of  the  ancient 
method ;  for  the  simplicity  of  the  early  Church  is 
by  no  means  to  be  confounded  with  looseness,  care- 
lessness, or  disorder,  as  is  the  thought  of  many  who 
advocate  laxity  in  doctrine  and  discipline.  The  ac- 
credited founders  of  the  Church  did  not,  under  the 
guidance  of  the  Spirit,  act  carelessly  or  clumsily. 
The  epistles  are  not  hasty  letters  thrown  off  without 
exact  thought,  and  with  vague  purpose,  but  with  all 
their  ease  of  style  and  epistolary  variety  of  subject 
(for  even  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  can  not  rightly 
be  called  a  treatise),  they  carry  a  divine  weight  in 
every  sentence,  and  are  not  to  be  judged  by  human 
standards.  When  the  Church  was  built  on  apostles 
and  prophets,  it  was  built  on  a  God-selected  founda- 
tion, made  perfect  by  the  Master-builder.  If  any 
flaw  or  blemish  were  to  be  found  in  the  apostolic 
writings,  so  far  the  foundation  of  the  Church  would 
be  defective.  We  can  not  too  pointedly  condemn 
the  notion  that  the  Church  contains  in  itself  the 
power  to  develop  piinciples.  It  is  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic idea,  which  allows  in  its  application  the  widest 


78 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


departure  from  Scripture  doctrine  and  practice.  The 
Church  may  develop  in  size,  in  purity,  in  power,  in 
grace,  but  never  in  the  principles  of  its  life  and  gov- 
ernment. These  come  only  from  revelation,  and  no 
new  revelation  has  been  given  the  Church  since  apos- 
tolic day.  We  hear  much  of  development  of  doctrine. 
It  is  a  phrase  of  doubtful  propriety.  If  it  mean  that 
doctrine  can  subjectively  be  developed  in  our  under- 
standing of  the  revealed  truth,  as,  doubtless,  is  the 
meaning  with  many  that  use  it,  we  can  not  find  fault 
with  it.  But  if  it  mean  that  new  doctrine  is  object- 
ively developed  out  of  the  old  or  out  of  the  Church's 
infallibility,  then  we  take  issue  with  the  statement, 
and  insist  on  the  Revealed  Word  of  God  in  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  as  the  only  rule  of  faith  for  all 
time.  The  great  principles  of  truth  for  belief  and 
action  were  given  completely  when  the  Church  was 
founded,  and  we  have  no  warrant  for  adding  from 
our  own  invention  the  conceits  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  We  have  eighteen  centuries  of  mistakes, 
born  thus  in  departing  from  the  principles  of  the 
Written  Word,  to  warn  us.  What  was  monasticism, 
with  its  long  entail  of  curses,  but  a  revolt  against 
the  Scripture  teaching  of  a  Social  Church  ?  What 
was  the  ungodly  episode  of  the  Crusades,  but  the 
adoption  of  the  new  principle  of  the  sword  for  the 
propagation  of  Christianity  ?  What  was  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Papacy  itself,  but  the  supplementing 


ARGUMENTA  TIVE  PO  WER.  ^g 

by  human  wisdom  of  the  Divine  Word  ;  the  reahzed 
thought  that  man  could  improve  on  the  divine  model, 
and  form  a  stronger  and  purer  Church  after  the  pat- 
tern of  civil  monarchies  ? 

The  departure  at  first  does  not  startle,  because  it 
is  begun  in  godly  desire  for  the  Church's  growth  and 
the  world's  salvation,  or,  at  least,  for  the  purity  of 
the  individual  Christian ;  but  with  time  the  new  direc- 
tion leads  farther  and  farther  from  the  original  order, 
until  at  length  a  false  principle  is  hopelessly  fastened 
upon  the  Church  as  a  part  of  its  very  life,  and  a  revo- 
lution is  necessary  to  restore  things  to  primitive  truth. 
There  is  not  a  denomination  of  Christians  now  exist- 
ing that  is  not  open  to  this  charge  of  inventing  meth- 
ods that  involve  new  and  false  principles  in  the 
Church's  life ;  and  it  would  be  a  wholesome  and  in- 
teresting exercise  to  review  them  all,  and  mark  the 
points  in  which  the  New  Testament  has  been  slighted, 
disobeyed,  or  deemed  insufficient  by  the  guides  of 
thought  and  action  in  the  Church  of  Christ.  But 
such  a  discussion  is  foreign  to  our  present  task. 

We  are  led  to  notice  the  subject  from  the  one  point 
of  departure  from  the  New  Testament  order  which 
legitimately  comes  before  us,  the  departure  from  the 
rule  of  a  strong-minded  and  thoroughly  cultured  min- 
istry, which  has  been  defended  on  the  ground  of  the 
necessities  of  the  Church  and  the  world.  This  wrong 
action  has  produced  its  abundant  evils,  as  all  unscript- 


8o  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

ural  or  anti-scriptural  conduct  in  the  Church  must  do 
harm.  False  doctrine  and  corrupt  morals  have  often 
had  their  rise  in  the  mistaken  zeal  of  godly  men,  who 
have  sought  a  new  and  better  plan  than  Scripture 
gave  them  of  advancing  the  truth.  And  when  con- 
servative men  have  lifted  up  a  warning  voice  against 
such  new  departures,  their  faithfulness  has  been 
greeted  with  derision,  and  often  with  the  impugning 
of  their  motive  and  denunciation  of  their  spiritual 
coldness  and  worldliness.  Many,  conscious  of  the 
error,  have  feared  such  an  opposition  from  active  and 
prominent  minds  in  the  Church  and  from  a  public 
opinion  which  such  minds  guided,  and  have,  there- 
fore, rushed  into  the  new  idea  with  the  multitude, 
salving  their  conscience  with,  "  Oh,  it's  a  little  mat- 
ter ! "  and  thus  establishing  a  false  principle  to  work 
its  evil  in  the  Church  for  generations.  That  which 
greatly  helps  such  false  movements  in  the  Church  is 
the  support  of  the  better  elements  of  the  world.  The 
evil  principles  adopted  are  generally  such  as  are  in 
use  in  the  world's  affairs,  and  the  Church  unconscious- 
ly leans  upon  the  worldly  judgment  which  it  hears 
expressed  on  all  sides.  It  is  so  easy  to  leave  the 
divine  oracles  for  human  wisdom.  It  is,  perhaps, 
easier  in  this  day  than  ever  before,  when  the  world 
has  put  on  a  friendly  and  sociable  air  toward  the 
Church,  and  its  newspapers  act  the  part  of  patrons 
and  critics  of  the  Church's  life. 


ARGUMENTA  TIVE  PO  WER.  g i 

It  is  very  natural  to  yield  to  this  alliance  on  the 
score  of  liberality  and  humanity,  and  yet  this  yield- 
ing is  the  poisoning  of  the  sources  of  the  Church's 
strength.  Instead  of  the  Church  being  guided  in  its 
conduct  by  the  Word  of  God  and  its  ministers,  a 
crowd  of  godless  Bohemians  break  into  its  sacred 
inclosure,  and  not  only  defile  everything  with  their 
pens,  but  influence  votes  and  decisions,  which  should 
be  made  only  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord,  and  in  a  prayer- 
ful and  unworldly  spirit.  The  Church's  position  to- 
ward the  world  should  not  be  different  from  what  it 
was  in  Christ's  day.  The  world  hated  Him,  and  He 
assured  His  disciples  that  the  world  would  hate  them. 
The  Church  that  is  loved  by  the  world  has  lost  Christ. 
The  love  of  the  world  by  the  Church  (on  the  other 
hand)  should  be  only  the  love  of  compassion  and 
godly  desire  for  its  redemption.  Where  it  is  the  love 
of  complacency,  then,  again,  we  have  a  Christless, 
Godless  Church.  He  that  loveth  the  world,  the  love 
of  the  Father  is  not  in  him. 

Now  we  can  not  deny  that  the  Church's  present 
danger  lies  in  this  tendency  to  make  up  all  differences 
with  the  world,  to  kiss  and  make  friends.  By  this 
mesalliance  distinctive  Christianity  is  in  danger  of  be- 
coming merged  in  a  species  of  naturalism,  and  all 
that  is  supernatural  and  divinely  authoritative  is  to 
give  way  to  schemes  and  systems  of  human  wisdom. 
Again  and  again  we  assert  that  there  is  no  remedy 


32  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

for  this  fearful  evil  but  a  faithful,  humble,  persistent, 
and  exclusive  return  to  the  Inspired  Word  ;  the  hon- 
oring of  which  will  exalt  and  purify  and  advance  the 
Church,  which  will  appear  before  the  world  only  as 
its  instructor  and  guide,  and  never  as  its  companion 
and  partner. 

It  is  in  conformity  to  that  Inspired  Word  that  we 
dwell  on  the  necessity  of  a  strong-minded  and  edu- 
cated ministry,  mighty  in  the  Scriptures,  as  a  safe- 
guard against  many  of  the  poisonous  errors  that, 
both  in  doctrine  and  practice,  are  now  conspicuous, 
and  which  even  strong  minds  that  are  weak  in  the 
Scriptures,  are  too  ready  to  propagate  with  an  igno- 
rance that  is  concealed  from  the  multitude. 

There  is  always  present  in  the  Church  a  tendency 
to  rely  on  impulses  from  within,  rather  than  guidance 
from  without.  The  uncertain  and  blind  emotion  is 
preferred  to  the  Word  of  God.  Schemes  and  meth- 
ods are  adopted  that  are  reeking  with  carnality,  and 
these  are  called  spiritual,  because  they  are  said  to  be 
the  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  within  us,  and  yet  these 
spiritual  activities  are  in  the  teeth  of  Holy  Scripture. 
I  heard  a  preacher  warn  his  brethren  against  re- 
sisting the  Holy  Ghost  by  preventing  women  from 
becoming  preachers.  He  thought  that  his  impulse 
was  better  than  the  Bible,  and  that,  while  resisting 
the  Bible  was  perfectly  proper,  resisting  his  impulse 
was  resisting  the  Holy  Ghost. 


ARGUMENTATIVE  POWER.  83 

The  wild  onslaught  upon  the  liquor-saloons  by  the 
Ohio  women,  with  a  travesty  of  prayer  as  its  accom- 
paniment, was  the  outshooting  of  an  impulse,  that 
had  many  good  elements  in  it,  but  was  in  its  overt 
action  clean  contrary  to  the  teachings  of  the  Word 
of  God.  Fanaticism  is  ignorance  assuming  a  divine 
authority,  and  that  Ohio  movement  was  fanaticism, 
and  only  injured  the  cause  of  true  reHgion.  The 
Church's  history  is  full  to  overflowing  of  this  use  of 
blind  impulses  as  guides,  to  the  neglect,  and  even 
contempt,  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

The  only  safeguard  against  this  is  an  educated  min- 
istry ;  a  ministry  thoroughly  grounded  in  all  the  ele- 
ments of  revealed  truth ;  a  ministry  that  knows  how  to 
correct  and  control  mere  passion  and  emotion  by  the 
higher  authority  of  the  Divine  truth  ;  a  ministry  that 
brings  every  proposed  scheme  to  the  certain  touchstone 
of  the  Word  ;  a  ministry  that  recognizes  the  fact  that 
the  Spirit  speaks  to  the  Churches,  not  through  the 
states  or  feelings  of  nervous  and  excitable  people,  but 
through  the  written  oracles,  without  which  common 
standard  there  could  be  no  order  whatever  in  the 
Church  of  God.  That  God  has  left  His  Church  in 
Christian  days  to  the  guidance  of  such  an  ignis  fatiius 
as  human  feeling,  is  a  doctrine  which  an  uneducated 
ministry  may  be  expected  to  glorify,  but  which  can 
not  stand  for  a  moment  by  the  side  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  or  by  that  other 


84  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

doctrine  inculcated  by  the  Scriptures,  that  God  is  not 
a  God  of  confusion,  but  of  order.  Given  the  Script- 
ures as  an  inspired  revelation  of  God,  and  you  must 
have  as  your  necessary  sequitur,  a  ministry  thoroughly 
learned  in  the  Scriptures  as  the  only  safe  preachers 
for  the  Church  and  the  world. 


DISPOSITION.— MANNER.— HABITS. 


LECTURE    IV. 

We  have  considered  the  Physical  and  Intellectual 
qualifications  of  the  true  Preacher.  We  now  proceed 
to  those  qualifications  on  which  the  Word  of  God  lays 
the  greatest  stress.  It  is  remarkable  that  in  the  de- 
scription  of  a  Christian  minister  given  by  Paul  in  his 
letter  to  Timothy,  where  fifteen  particulars  are  given, 
thirteen  of  the  fifteen  refer  to  the  moral  side  of  the 
man.  The  moral  worth  and  reputation  of  the  preacher 
is  of  first  value  for  the  propagation  of  that  truth 
which  is  distinctively  spiritual,  and  affects  the  charac- 
ter of  the  inmost  soul.  He  has  to  deal  with  the 
tenderest  and  most  sacred  affections  and  sympathies 
of  men,  and  hence  all  his  aptness  in  body  and  mind 
must  find  its  activity  through  his  moral  nature.  In 
treating  of  this  most  important  side  of  the  Christian 
preacher,  we  may  conveniently  divide  the  subject 
into  disposition,  manner,  habits,  and  spiritual  life. 

I.  Disposition.  The  disposition  is  the  result  partly 
of  temperament  and  partly  of  education.  It  differs 
from  manner,  in  that  manner  is  wholly  external,  while 
disposition  is  an  inward  impulse  and  tendency  made 
visible  generally  in  external  acts.  It  differs  from  Jiab- 
its,  in  that  habits   are  forms   or  methods  of  doing, 

(87) 


88  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

while  disposition  is  a  state  of  feeling.  Disposition  is 
situated  nearer  the  moral  center  than  the  other  two, 
but  all  are  directly  connected  with  the  moral  nature. 
A  man  is  classed  according  to  his  disposition,  without 
touching  the  vital  questions  of  good  and  bad,  right  and 
wrong,  true  and  false.  A  good,  right,  and  true  man 
may  have  a  most  unhappy  disposition,  and  a  bad, 
wrong,  and  false  man  may  have  a  most  happy  dispo- 
sition. Esau  had  a  far  happier  disposition  than  Jacob, 
but  Esau  had  no  appreciation  of  the  good,  right,  and 
true.  False  judgments  are  constantly  made  regarding 
men  by  using  their  dispositions  rather  than  their  lives 
as  criteria.  A  benevolent  infidel  is  counted  better 
than  a  selfish  Christian.  In  many  social  relations  he 
certainly  is  better,  but  in  real  worth  the  selfish  Chris- 
tian is  far  superior  to  the  benevolent  infidel,  because 
he  has  the  Spirit  of  God  in  him,  notwithstanding  his 
selfishness.  In  the  scales  of  eternity  weight  is  not 
made  by  disposition,  but  by  faith  in  God. 

With  all  this,  disposition  is  a  most  important  ele- 
ment of  efficiency  in  the  godly  life,  and  its  character 
is  not  to  be  treated  lightly.  In  a  Christian  minister 
styles  of  disposition  that  we  should  tolerate,  perhaps 
even  admire,  in  other  men  can  not  be  allowed,  (i). 
A  minister  should  never  be  irritable  or  irascible.  The 
oracle  is  calm,  and  he  who  ministers  at  the  oracle 
should  partake  of  its  calmness.  Anger  in  man  is  al- 
ways a  mark  of  weakness,  and  the  teacher  of  divine 


DISPOSITION.  89 

truth  must  not  willfully  carry  marks  of  weakness. 
Even  a  Moses  stains  his  career  and  so  dwarfs  his  in- 
fluence by  giving  way  to  passion,  that  he  must  needs 
be  speedily  removed  from  the  people  by  the  hand  of 
God  and  yield  his  place  to  a  successor.  An  irascible 
disposition  is  not  only  a  weakener  of  influence :  it  is 
a  blind  to  the  judgment.  It  makes  the  minister  a 
partisan  and  fills  him  with  prejudice.  He  becomes 
a  wolf  where  he  ought  to  be  a  shepherd.  He  creates 
disorder  where  he  should  be  a  peacemaker.  This  dis- 
position is  also  a  snare  to  the  preacher's  own  soul.  It 
will  entangle  him  in  mortifications,  experiences  of 
remorse,  self-condemnation,  and  despondency,  that 
will  prove  a  purgatory  of  suffering,  even  if  it  prove 
not  a  purgatory  of  purification.  The  irascible  dispo- 
sition is  near  akin  to  the  (2)  petulant  disposition,  which 
is  ready  to  take  offense  at  the  slightest  thwarting  of 
the  will,  and  which  fancies  insult  where  none  is  in- 
tended, which  renders  a  man  difficult  to  approach,  and 
in  a  minister  deprives  him  of  half  his  efficiency  by 
reason  of  this  barrier  to  easy  intercourse.  A  petulant 
preacher  will  show  his  feelings  in  the  pulpit  by  a  per- 
sonal method  of  treating  his  themes,  by  indulging  in 
a  complaining  or  scolding  style  of  speech,  and  by 
using  a  captious  rather  than  an  impartial  argumenta- 
tion in  his  discourse.  (3).  The  morose  disposition 
comes  next  in  order,  as  one  to  be  carefully  shunned 
by  the  preacher  of  the  glad  tidings.     He  is  a  messen- 


90 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


ger  of  God,  to  declare  the  grace  that  brings  salvation 
and  eternal  joy  to  the  soul.  His  face  should  be  as 
much  like  the  angelic  face  of  Stephen  as  a  heart  full 
of  peace  and  joy  in  Christ  can  make  it.  The  Jere- 
miahs have  their  place  in  the  Church's  history.  They 
sit  among  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem,  and  sing  the  sad 
dirge  that  impresses  the  fearful  lesson  on  the  children 
of  men.  But  they  are  not  the  patterns  for  Christian 
preachers.  No  happier  errand  can  man  cany  than  the 
news  of  a  divine  love  that  is  ready  to  forgive  the  chief 
of  sinners  and  bestow  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  every 
willing  heart.  It  is  a  frightful  error  to  bring  this 
message,  surrounded  with  lurid  light  and  thunder- 
clouds. It  is  true  that  there  is  a  dark  background, 
with  which  God's  grace  can  be  well  contrasted,  but 
let  it  be  a  background,  not  a  foreground.  Let  the 
preacher  be  a  man  of  genial  disposition,  ever  burning 
with  a  desire  to  make  all  smile  around  him,  and  let  no 
false  sense  of  dignity  lengthen  his  face  or  deepen  his 
tone.  (4).  The  preacher  should,  moreover,  be  free  from 
an  impulsive  disposition.  The  captain  of  a  ship  directs 
his  vessel  by  chart,  compass,  log,  and  observation,  not 
by  whim  and  subjective  fancies.  He  looks  beyond 
mere  appearances,  and  he  acts  from  motives  that  are 
deep  below  the  surface.  The  preacher  is  a  captain. 
He  has  crew,  freight,  and  passengers  committed  to  his 
care.  He  has,  according  to  the  old  and  expressive 
phrase,  "  the  cure  of  souls."     Impulsive    conduct   in 


DISPOSITION.  91 

him  is  a  risk  to  many  besides  himself.  The  Scriptures 
expressly  enjoin  the  "  episcopos  "  (and  he  is  the  mod- 
ern "preacher")  to  be  kyyipari)^,  to  have  that  self- 
control  that  shall  repress  impulses  and  make  them 
obedient  to  order  and  right.  He  should  be  known  to 
his  people  as  having  a  well-balanced  life  that  can  be 
trusted  both  for  advice  and  example.  An  impulsive 
nature  may  carry  both  minister  and  people  into  doc- 
trinal heresy  or  irregularity  of  life  on  the  slightest 
occasion,  and  in  any  special  crisis  it  is  sure  to  do  dam- 
age. (5).  The  preacher  should  not  show  a  care/ess 
disposition.  The  impulsive  disposition  has  too  much 
fire  ;  the  careless  has  too  little.  The  careless  preacher 
straggles  rather  than  marches,  and  fires  his  gun  at 
hap-hazard.  He  has  no  method,  makes  little  or  no 
preparation  for  any  public  duty,  and  believes  (or  acts 
as  if  he  believed)  that  a  special  inspiration  will  take 
care  of  him  in  all  his  functions.  He  is  the  clerical 
sloven  that  abuses  his  own  gifts  and  his  people's  op- 
portunities, while  he  gives  the  world  the  chance  to 
talk  of  preachers  as  lazy  non-producers.  (6).  The 
preacher  should  never  exhibit  a  ino?iey-loving  disposi- 
tion. He  is  to  be  acpiXdpyopog.  A  preacher  known  to 
be  a  money-hunter  is  useless  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ. 
Christ  and  Mammon  are  in  exact  opposition  to  one 
another.  The  Christian  conscience  feels  this,  and  the 
world's  instinct  recognizes  this.  The  moment  the 
world  detects  a  money-loving  preacher,  it  exclaims. 


92 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


either  delightedly  (as  finding  so  high  an  example  for 
its  own  carnality)  or  scornfully  (as  seeing  the  contrast 
between  office  and  disposition)  "  he  is  become  as  one 
of  us."  The  minister  steps  down  from  his  throne  of 
advantage  and  mingles  with  the  plebeian  crowd,  to  be 
jostled  by  them  and  lose  his  power  with  his  dignity. 
A  preacher,  if  called  to  use  his  gifts  in  the  Church, 
should  be  provided  for  in  all  reasonable  living  by  his 
charge,  and  beyond  this  he  should  not  have  a  thought 
in  money  matters.  If  he  meddle  with  silver-mining 
or  petroleum  or  the  stock  market,  he  is  defiling  his 
sacred  ofifice.  If  the  Lord  of  Glory  became  poor  for 
our  sakes,  we  may  well  be  glad  to  remain  poor  for 
the  sake  of  His  great  work  of  grace.  The  preacher 
had  better  rely  upon  his  Lord  than  on  his  own  shrewd- 
ness in  the  money-market  for  his  support.  If  a 
preacher  is  not  called  to  use  his  gifts  in  the  Church, 
it  is  very  evident  that  he  is  called  to  support  himself 
and  family  in  a  legitimate  secular  calling,  and  in  this 
he  can  appear  as  an  honest  tradesman  or  officer,  but 
should  avoid  the  excitements,  absorptions,  or  ques- 
tionable practices  of  the  speculator.  Though  not 
directly  occupied  in  preaching,  he  has  the  honor  of  a 
preacher  to  support,  and  may,  in  the  providence  of 
God,  be  again  summoned  to  stand  in  the  pulpit.  He 
is  to  bear  this  always  in  mind,  and  to  do  nothing  that 
might  afterward  interfere  with  his  usefulness  by  de- 
grading  either  his  character  or  his   reputation.      A 


DISPOSITION.  g^ 

preacher  making  tents  or  mending  nets  is  one  thing; 
a  preacher  speculating  in  cotton  or  in  railroad  stocks 
is  quite  another.  The  one  seeks  his  legitimate  and 
honorable  support.  The  other  is  a  gambler  in  dis- 
guise. 

If  the  preacher  is  settled  in  a  charge  where  a  regu- 
lar and  sufficient  stipend  is  given  him,  any  money- 
making  occupation  or  device  is  the  betrayal  of  a  worldly 
spirit  that  taints  all  his  official  work  with  selfishness, 
and  selfishness  is  wholly  out-of-place  and  pernicious 
in  any  agencies  that  represent  the  unselfish  love  of 
Christ  and  His  soul-saving  Gospel.  (7).  The  preacher 
should  be  free  from  a  headstrong  disposition.  That 
he  should  be  firmly  settled  in  his  views  of  truth,  and 
in  his  principles  of  conduct,  none  can  deny.  To  waver 
in  these  is  to  be  an  unsafe  guide  and  to  forfeit  the  re- 
spect and  confidence  of  others.  When  we  speak  of 
disposition  we  are  not  treating  of  a  man's  relation  to 
truth,  but  his  relation  to  his  fellow-men.  The  head- 
strong disposition  disregards  the  rights  of  others.  It 
would  overcome  opinion  and  purpose  not  by  argu- 
ment, but  by  sheer  weight  of  persistence.  It  doubt- 
less often  defends  this  self-assertion  to  the  conscience 
under  the  plausible  name  of  truth-assertion ;  but  its 
unreasonableness  is  too  glaring  in  the  eyes  of  others 
for  any  sympathy  with  the  excuse  on  their  part.  The 
headstrong  preacher  can  not  have  counselors.  He 
can  have  only  acolytes.     He  will  drive  independent 


94  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

minds  from  him,  and  make  himself  a  httle  pope  in 
his  parish.  He  may  make  a  unity  in  this  way,  but  it 
will  be  a  unity  at  the  expense  of  the  church's  healthy 
life,  and  the  probability  is  that  he  will  extinguish  the 
life  altogether.  Churches  with  grand  opportunities 
for  usefulness  have  been  destroyed  by  preachers  who 
would  consult  no  other  oracle  than  their  own  preju- 
dices. They  have  made  a  desert  and  called  it  peace. 
The  adjective  avdadi]?  describes  this  disposition,  and 
is  found  in  Paul's  list  among  the  characteristics  of  the 
man  who  is  unfit  to  be  an  tmaHOTTog  in  the  Church  of 
Christ.  The  '^  /^t^  opyiXog,  jur)  Txapoivoq,  jurj  TrAj/Kr?/?"" 
that  immediately  follow  in  his  enumeration,  shows 
the  sad  length  to  which  this  disposition  may  go,  and 
which  the  actual  history  of  the  Church  has  so  often 
illustrated,  when  the  ministers  of  Jesus  have  entirely 
lost  sight  of  their  heavenly  calling  and  have  intro- 
duced the  rudeness  and  violence  of  the  world  into  the 
Church.  The  present  condition  of  the  Protestant 
Church  is  not  such  as  to  exhibit  these  forms  of  ex- 
cess, or  at  least  not  to  tolerate  them  if  exhibited,  but 
the  headstrong  disposition  which  is  their  spring  may 
show  itself  in  other  less  gross,  but  equally  hurtful 
ways.  (8).  The  Christian  preacher  should  not  have  an 
eremitic  disposition.  He  is  eminently,  though  not  of 
the  world,  a  man  for  the  world.  He  is  to  mingle 
freely  and  fully  with  men  of  all  classes  and  descrip- 
tions.    His  messare  is  for  all.     As  Paul  talked  with 


DISPOSITION.  95 

the  chance-passers  in  the  agora  as  well  as  with  the 
Stoics  and  Epicureans,  the  imitators  of  Paul  are  to 
court  every  opportunity  of  instructing  men  of  high 
and  low  degree,  men  learned  and  men  illiterate,  the 
salvation  they  preach  being  equally  important  to  all. 
To  this  end  a  preacher  can  not  afford  to  be  a  cloister- 
ed student,  except  at  such  stated  times  as  meditation 
and  study  may  be  necessary  for  his  work  in  the  world. 
The  retiring  disposition,  which  would  withdraw  him 
from  opportunity,  must  be  withstood.  Our  Saviour 
himself  went  from  house  to  house  and  mingled  con- 
stantly with  peer  and  peasant,  and  He,  like  Elisha,  is 
to  be  the  pattern  of  the  Christian  minister,  rather 
then  Elijah  or  John  the  Baptist,  who  were  startling 
and  arousing  as  preparers  of  the  way  for  the  steady 
and  detailed  instruction  of  those  that  were  to  follow 
them.  One  of  the  traits  of  character  insisted  on  by 
the  apostle  for  a  Christian  bishop  is  hospitality,  and 
that  alone  tells  the  whole  story  of  social  intercourse 
with  his  fellows.  He  is  not  only  not  to  be  a  recluse, 
but  he  is  not  to  assume  a  lofty  and  distant  style,  so 
as  to  be  separated  from  easy  contact  with  others.  His 
dignity  is  to  be  in  his  character  and  not  in  his  con- 
trivance. He  is  to  be  a  man  of  family,  the  husband 
of  one  wife,  having  his  children  in  proper  subjection, 
so  that  his  domestic  duties  and  experiences  will  fit 
him  the  better  for  all  the  relations  of  life.  The  Ro- 
manist doctrine  of   celibacy  is  directly  at  war  with 


o6  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

the  true  objects  of  the  Christain  ministry,  destroying 
that  sympathy  which  should  be  a  conspicuous  ele- 
ment in  the  minister  as  he  prescribes  for  the  spiritual 
wants  of  his  people.  Rome,  in  this,  as  in  her  other 
inventions,  instead  of  applying  the  divine  grace  to  all 
the  natural  nerves  of  human  life,  has  formed  an  arti- 
ficial tyranny,  monstrous  in  itg)rinciples  and  destruc- 
tive in  its  practice.  It  deforms  humanity,  where  grace 
would  reform  it. 

As  opposed  to  these  eight  styles  of  disposition 
w^hich  a  preacher  should  never  exhibit,  we  say  posi- 
tively that  he  should  be  calm,  gentle,  cheerful,  regular, 
careful,  disinterested,  reasonable,  and  social — a  man 
whom  all  will  respect  and  most  will  love,  whose  words 
of  counsel  will  not  be  discounted  by  a  life  out  of 
harmony  with  the  teachings,  and  who  will  not  be 
simply  endured  as  an  official  teacher,  but  will  be  ever 
welcomed  as  a  trusted  friend. 

2.  Manner.  Leaving  now  the  psychical  disposition, 
we  look  to  the  outward  manners  of  the  preacher,  some 
of  which  are  natural  and  are  traceable  to  birth  or  edu- 
cation, and  some  assumed  from  notions  of  effectiveness. 
Manner  has  so  much  to  do  with  attracting  or  repel- 
ling men,  that  it  carries  with  it  an  importance  greater 
than  its  intrinsic  worth.  It  is  only  the  exceptional 
and  philosophic  mind  that  looks  beneath  manner  and 
judges  directly  by  the  character  and  disposition ;  and, 
hence,  he  who  would  have  a  passport  to  all  men's 


MANNER.  gy 

hearts  must  wear  the  outer  garments  of  propriety  in 
his  intercourse  with  others.  He  is  not  a  wise  man 
who  cares  nothing  for  appearances,  any  more  than  he 
who  makes  a  false  presentation  of  himself  to  his 
fellow-men.  The  manners  of  a  preacher  should  ever 
be  harmonious  with  the  sacred  character  of  his  office 
and  the  consistencies  of  a  holy  life.  In  describing 
these  manners  we  must  keep  before  us  the  great  aim 
of  the  preacher  as  the  representative  of  the  Lord 
and  proclaimer  of  His  Gospel.  He  is  to  sink  self  in 
his  Master's  cause  and  in  his  love  for  souls,  and  he  is 
to  mould  self  according  to  the  demands  of  this  high- 
est philanthropy.  Manners  are  so  largely  a  matter  of 
choice  and  determination,  that  no  preacher  can  avoid 
the  responsibility  of  conducting  himself  with  seemly 
behavior  before  his  people  and  the  world.  We  might 
almost  sum  up  all  we  have  to  say  on  this  head  in  the 
one  sentence,  that  a  minister  ought  to  be  a  perfect 
gentleman.  The  word  *'  gentleman  "  may  be  hard  to 
define  in  phrase,  but  yet  is  well  understood  by  all. 
It  is  a  word  that  has  regard  chiefly  to  manners,  and 
describes  one  who  is  acceptable  in  all  his  social  con- 
tact. Whatever  may  be  his  real  character  or  tone  of 
mind,  he  controls  himself  to  such  an  extent  as  to  fit 
in  gracefully  in  all  the  movements  of  society,  and  so 
to  approve  himself  to  all.  He  covers  the  mistakes  of 
others  by  calling  attention  to  a  new  subject,  and  com- 
mends their  successes  by  fixing  attention  upon  them. 
5 


gS  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

He  looks  to  see  what  others  Hke,  and  then  adapts 
himself  to  their  taste  while  he  is  in  their  company. 
He  never  is  boisterous  or  rude  in  his  speech,  however 
resolute  and  determined  he  may  be  in  his  character. 
He  knows  that  power  is  not  sited  in  noise  or  boorish- 
ness,  and  that  an  iron  hand  is  best  used  in  a  velvet 
glove.  A  gentleman  is  not  to  be  confounded  (as  so 
often  he  is)  with  the  man  of  fashion,  who  has  learned 
the  lying  grimaces  and  small  talk  of  the  salon,  and 
who  invests  his  soul  as  well  as  his  body  at  the  tailor's. 
A  gentleman  assumes  his  manners  because  they  are 
right  in  themselves  or  advantageous  for  society ;  but 
the  man  of  fashion  assumes  his  manners,  because  they 
are  in  the  fashion.  The  gentleman  is  probably  what 
the  Greeks  denoted  by  uaXoyiayaQoi,  a  word  which 
implies  a  moral  worth  beneath  the  agreeable  manners. 
There  have  been  preachers  who  affect6d  clownish 
manners,  through  a  strange  infatuation  that  these 
added  to  their  power,  because,  forsooth,  they  added 
to  their  notoriety.  In  their  garments  or  walk  or 
methods  of  address,  they  have  played  the  fool,  and 
only  their  undoubted  talent  has  saved  them  from  uni- 
versal reproach.  Young  preachers,  who  imitated 
these  eccentricities,  but  who  had  not  the  talent  of 
their  patterns,  have  speedily  gone  under.  Eccentrici- 
ties are  never  enjoyed  by  others.  They  are  only  en- 
dured. There  may  be  a  sense  of  humor  temporarily 
excited  by  the  sight  of  an  eccentricity  in  a  minister, 


MANNER.  QQ 

but  it  can  never  be  a  permanent  source  of  pleasure  to 
a  parish.  The  man  who  helps  himself  first,  the  man 
who  stands  in  another's  pathway,  the  man  who  throws 
his  person  into  ungainly  postures,  the  man  who  af- 
fects an  uncouth  dress  or  walk,  the  man  who  monopo- 
lizes the  conversation,  the  man  who  delights  in  morti- 
fying others,  the  man  who  indulges  in  any  filthy 
habit — such  as  these  have  no  place  under  the  cate- 
gory of  "  gentleman,"  while  the  unfortunate  who  eats 
with  his  knife  or  who  blows  his  nose  at  the  table  is 
rather  a  boor  who  sins  through  ignorance.  The 
Christian  minister  should  be  neither  ungentlemanly 
nor  boorish.  Willful  sin  or  ignorance,  in  this  case, 
may  be  equally  harmful,  repelling  those  who  should 
be  attracted,  and  effectually  putting  a  check  on  all 
religious  influence,  the  only  exception  to  this  general 
statement  having  relation  to  the  boor  among  boors, 
where  his  boorishness  of  course  would  not  be  noticed. 

Next  to  this  comprehensive  characteristic  of  man- 
ner noted  as  gentlemanly,  we  may  mark  those  forms 
of  manner  which  are  used  in  the  pulpit  for  emphasis 
or  to  produce  the  greater  impression  upon  the  audi- 
ence. 

In  all  address  to  our  fellows,  there  must  be  art, 
which  is  only  to  say  that  there  must  be  adaptedness  in 
manner  consciously  exercised.  No  man  can  be  so 
lost  to  himself  as  to  conduct  an  hour's  service  in 
complete  unconsciousness  of  his  manner.     He  may 


1 00  THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

at  times  lose  himself  in  his  discourse,  forgetting 
everything  but  his  message  and  the  persons  he  ad- 
dresses ;  but  such  a  rapt  state  can  not  continue  long. 
As  conscious  of  his  manner,  he  is  an  artist,  so  that 
when  we  say  the  manner  in  the  pulpit  must  be  art- 
less, we  are  not  using  exact  language.  The  danger 
lies  in  pushing  art  to  an  exaggeration,  either  beyond 
the  point  of  just  influence  or  beyond  all  harmony 
with  the  actual  feelings  of  the  preacher.  In  the 
former  case,  the  art  may  be  of  complete  accord  with 
the  preacher's  feelings,  and  yet  be  so  extravagant  to 
the  audience's  cooler  state  of  mind,  as  to  disgust  and 
repel,  while  in  the  latter  case  the  insincerity  is  sure  to 
show  itself  and  produce  a  like  result.  The  preacher, 
therefore,  has  two  errors  to  guard  against  in  respect 
of  manner  in  the  pulpit :  one  involving  the  moral  ele- 
ment of  insincerity,  and  the  other  evidencing  a  want 
of  control  over  his  impulses.  With  regard  to  the 
former,  we  need  only  remark  that,  whatever  the  man- 
ner, it  is  to  be  condemned.  It  is  an  imitation  of  the 
stage,  and  the  stage  and  pulpit  have  nothing  what- 
ever in  common,  notwithstanding  the  popular  idea 
that  they  are  run  in  the  same  mould.  The  stage  has 
as  its  object  to  amuse,  and  it  has  as  its  uniform 
method  exaggeration  ;  but  the  pulpit  has  as  its  object 
to  instruct,  and  it  has  as  its  method  the  simplicity 
that  becomes  the  delivery  of  truth.  Young  preachers 
who  go  to  the  stage  for  an  example  of  manner  or  ut- 


MANNER.  101 

terance,  are  on  the  high-road  to  ministerial  ruin,  al- 
though they  may  make  a  newspaper  fame.  The  stage- 
actor  is  etymologically  and  classically  the  hypocrite, 
and  has,  so  far  as  he  is  a  stage-acfor,  no  sympathy 
with  the  preacher  and  his  solemn  duties.  He  will 
teach  the  foolish  preacher  who  goes  to  him  for  in- 
struction, poses,  gestures,  tones,  and  grimaces  that 
have  no  more  to  do  with  a  minister's  person  than 
Hamlet  or  Romeo  has  to  do  with  his  theme. 

The  other  error  of  overwrought  manner  in  the  pul- 
pit, as  we  have  said,  shows  a  want  of  proper  control 
over  the  preacher's  impulses.  He  intensifies  his  voice 
to  a  scream  or  a  roar,  according  to  its  tenor  or  base 
nature.  He  moves  about  the  platform  like  a  caged 
lion,  to  the  dread  of  all  weak  nerves  in  the  congrega- 
tion. He  pounds  the  desk  or  Bible  with  doubled  fist, 
and  flings  his  arms  at  every  point  of  the  compass. 
His  excessive  emphasis  becomes  no  emphasis  at  all. 
His  sermon  is  italicized  in  every  word.  In  this  case 
art  should  use  a  repressive  influence — should  hold  in 
check  the  headlong  energy,  should  modulate  cadence 
and  temper  movement,  and  so  bring  the  thought  into 
proper  relief.  A  power  that  is  held  in  continues  to 
exert  its  influence  over  the  audience,  but  in  a  different 
way  from  its  action  when  unchecked.  In  the  latter 
case,  the  audience  is  carried  away  by  it  as  the  forest's 
debris  is  carried  away  by  the  torrent ;  but  in  the 
former  the  audience  is  awed  with  a  sense  of  a  force 


1 02  THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

reserved.  The  experience  is  varied,  but  the  influence 
is  unbroken.  The  earnest,  energetic  preacher,  who, 
in  this  way,  restrains  his  vehemence,  is  ever  en  rapport 
with  his  hearers.  In  the  case  of  the  stage-preacher 
any  abatement  of  his  exaggeration  is  absolute  flat- 
ness, making  a  ruinous  contrast  with  his  mask  and 
buskin.  The  earnest  preacher's  effort  is  only  to  hold 
his  horse  in  ;  the  stage-preacher's  effort  is  to  whip  him 
up  to  regulation  speed.  The  one  has  to  control  a. 
power,  the  other  to  constitute  a  power.  We  can 
readily  see  how  very  different  must  be  both  their  ex- 
perience and  their  influence.  The  one  has  the  pleasant 
duty  of  directing,  the  other  the  painful  task  of  in- 
venting, and  the  one  supplies  his  auditory  from  his 
abundance,  while  the  other  can  rarely  avoid  exhibit- 
ing the  scantiness  of  his  theatrical  wardrobe. 

Another  set  of  false  pulpit  manners  may  be  grouped 
around  the  general  charge  of  recklessness.  It  is  either 
a  lack  of  art  or  a  purposed  despising  of  art  on  the  part 
of  the  minister.  He  enters  the  pulpit  either  on  a  run, 
or,  perhaps,  in  a  sauntering  way.  He  tosses  his  hat 
under  the  seat.  He  turns  over  the  leaves  of  the  Bible, 
as  a  child  would  look  for  pictures  in  a  book.  He 
looks  all  over  the  congregation  while  they  are  sing- 
ing God's  praise.  He  prays  in  a  mechanical  way, 
and  turns  toward  his  seat  before  he  has  finished  his 
"Amen."  He  does  not  believe  in  ceremony;  but  has 
he  never  heard  of  the  apostolic  rule  of  decency  and 


MANNER. 


103 


order?  Does  he  not  see  that  the  associations  of  the 
pulpit  ought  to  be  sober  and  solemn,  not  common- 
place, and  even  ludicrous?  Is  there  not  a  certain 
natural  dignity  that  becomes  the  position  and  func- 
tion of  an  ordained  preacher  before  the  people  com- 
mitted to  his  spiritual  care?  Surely  there  are  instinct- 
ive proprieties  that  we  must  not  rudely  violate  in  an 
iconoclastic  hatred  of  priestcraft  and  ritual.  There  is 
such  a  thing  as  sacredness  of  association,  although  we 
do  not  believe  in  any  sacredness  of  locality,  and  he  is 
really  sacrilegious  who  would  defile  a  holy  association. 
There  certainly  should  be  a  gravity  and  orderly  de- 
meanor in  the  person  of  him  who  delivers  God's  re- 
vealed truth  to  a  waiting  congregation.  Recklessness 
is  no  more  proper  in  this  case  of  a  Christian  preacher 
than  it  would  have  been  in  the  case  of  Moses,  with 
his  message  to  the  people  from  Sinai ;  or  in  the  case 
of  Paul  when  telling  the  curious  Athenians  of  the 
"  Unknown  God."  It  is  on  this  ground  of  a  peculiar 
gravity  due  to  the  occasion  that  the  clerical  gown  can 
be  safely  advocated,  without  any  fear  of  its  bringing 
alb  and  cope  and  chasuble  in  its  train.  Certainly  a 
sober  and  dignified  gown  is  far  more  appropriate  than 
an  awkward  or  unseemly  habit. 

The  preacher  of  reckless  manner  gives  out  the 
hymn  as  if  he  were  simply  directing  the  choir  to  sing, 
when  he  should  be  guiding  the  congregation  into  the 
real  meaning  of  the  lyric  by  his  earnest  and  interested 


104 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


reading.  He  reads  the  passage  of  Scripture  with  no 
preparatory  study  of  its  full  significance,  and  so  with 
no  hearty  use  of  the  sacred  words.  In  both  cases  he 
is  unwittingly  teaching  the  congregation  to  be  formal 
and  mechanical  in  their  worship.  The  preacher  should 
feel  that  every  minute  he  has  in  the  pulpit  is  precious 
and  privileged  time,  offering  him  opportunities  to  reach 
the  hearts  of  many ;  opportunities  never,  in  the  case 
of  some,  to  be  repeated,  and  when  the  mind  is  gener- 
ally in  a  peculiarly  receptive  attitude.  He  should  be 
fully  charged  with  this  feeling,  and  every  exercise 
should  be  all  brimmed  with  solemn  earnestness.  A 
reckless  manner  in  such  a  position  betrays  a  lamenta- 
ble lack  of  appreciation  of  the  preacher's  responsibil- 
ity, and  shows  the  hireling  in  the  place  of  the  pastor. 
3.  Habits.  The  habits  of  the  preacher  next  call 
for  our  remark  as  we  note  the  moral  forces  of  the 
pulpit.  By  habits,  we  refer  to  modes  of  life,  and  not 
to  disposition  or  personal  manners.  While  the  disposi- 
tion was  a  bent  or  tendency  of  the  moral  nature,  and 
the  manner  was  an  external  matter  altogether,  al- 
though often  the  result  of  disposition,  the  habits  are 
visible  modes  of  life  which  involve  moral  principles,  evil 
or  otherwise,  as  the  case  may  be.  As  in  the  case  of 
the  dispositions,  we  shall  treat  this  portion  of  our  sub- 
ject in  the.iiegative  way,  and  hold  up  to  view  the  hab- 
its that  are  to  be  avoided.  The  preacher  is  to  be 
well-reported  of  by  those  who  are  without ;  he  is  to 


HABITS.  105 

have  a  just  and  holy  reputation,  as  one  who  loves  the 
good  and  hates  the  evil  in  all  their  forms ;  he  is  to  be 
unrebukabie  by  the  outside  world  for  any  blot  upon 
his  character.  These  are  divine  directions  regarding 
the  Christian  preacher,  and  we  can  not  neglect  them 
without  peril  to  the  Church.  When  the  world  recog- 
nizes its  own  vices  in  the  pulpit,  it  can  receive  no 
heavenly  message  from  that  quarter.  Evil  habits  in 
the  minister,  even  if  they  do  not  amount  to  crimes, 
have  the  same  general  effect.  They  lead  the  believer 
to  distrust  and  the  unbeliever  to  blaspheme.  We 
may  consider  in  their  order  the  personal,  the  pecu- 
niary, and  the  social  habits  of  the  preacher. 

(i).  Personal.  We  can  not  divorce  the  preaching 
from  the  preacher.  This  is  a  fundamental  truth  we 
can  not  too  often  repeat  in  pursuing  our  investiga- 
tion of  the  preacher's  qualifications.  The  question 
that  is  the  touchstone  in  every  case  is  this,  ''  Will  it 
thwart  or  hinder  the  effect  of  the  message  ?  "  and  in 
accordance  with  the  response,  we  make  out  our  por- 
trait. For  this  reason  we  are  obliged  to  look  at  the 
man's  personal  appearance  and  dress,  as  well  as  at 
his  style  of  disposition  and  manner  toward  others.  A 
preacher  who  is  slovenly  in  his  attire,  allowing  his  hair 
to  be  unkempt,  his  nails  uncleaned,  his  boots  un- 
blacked,  and  his  clothes  unbrushed,  will  prove  a  very 
poor  conductor  of  divine  truth.  He  will  find  very 
small  fields  of  labor,  and  under  his  tillage  they  will 
5* 


Io6  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

become  "  beautifully  less."  "  Be  ye  clean  that  bear 
the  vessels  of  the  Lord,"  has  a  literal  as  well  as  spir- 
itual application.  Men  of  excellent  ability  have  won- 
dered why  they  did  not  succeed  in  life,  when  the  only 
reason  (which  their  friends  shrank  from  disclosing  to 
them)  was  their  personal  uncleanness.  It  seems  a 
childish  interference,  and  a  sort  of  impudence,  to  tell 
a  man  to  tie  his  cravat  or  pull  down  his  vest,  and  yet 
a  man  must  have  very  great  and  brilliant  qualities 
who  can  live  down  the  injurious  effect  of  such  trifling 
irregularities  which  mark  him  as  the  sloven.  At  many 
of  the  sloven's  habits  men  feel  both  insulted  and 
ashamed.  They  expect  a  preacher  to  be  neat  and 
orderly  in  his  appearance  before  them,  and  they  have 
a  right  to  such  expectation,  from  the  nature  of  the  re- 
lation between  them.  The  torn  hat  or  egg-stained 
shirt-bosom  is  therefore  (if  customary,  and  not  an  ac- 
cidental necessity)  a  practical  insult  to  the  preacher's 
charge,  which  only  remarkable  gifts  of  the  preacher 
can  prevent  them  from  resenting.  The  people,  more- 
over, are  to  an  extent  identified  with  their  pastor,  and 
in  ]iis  reproach  they  suffer,  so  that  his  slovenly  habits 
fill  them  with  mortification.  I  know  not  who  first 
framed  the  saying  that  "  cleanliness  is  next  to  godli- 
ness," and  I  am  sure  I  would  not  approve  the  senti- 
ment ;  but  yet  I  acknowledge  it  is  very  hard  to  asso- 
ciate piety  with  willful  dirtiness  of  the  person,  and 
very,  very  hard  to  look  upon  an  unwashed  minister  as 
a  man  of  God. 


HABITS. 


107 


Beside  the  slovenly  habits  we  may  put  the  iin- 
healthy  habits,  which  do  not  repel  indeed,  but  may  as 
examples  lead  many  a  young  life  astray.  The  use  of 
spirituous  liquors  and  the  excessive  use  of  any  stimu- 
lant, over-indulgence  at  the  table,  and  (what  is  seldom 
classed  with  these)  over-study  or  study  at  midnight 
hours,  are  some  of  the  unhealthy  habits  which  it 
should  be  a  preacher's  care  to  shun.  A  preacher's 
physical  life  should  be  a  model  in  its  wise  distribution 
of  time  for  work  and  rest,  in  its  right  arrangement  of 
study,  visits,  domestic  employment,  public  services, 
and  general  usefulness  with  the  recreation  that  is 
necessary  for  the  fullness  of  efficiency.  Persistence 
in  a  habit  injurious  to  health  is,  on  the  part  of  a 
preacher,  the  robbery  of  the  Master.  It  is  shortening 
life,  weakening  the  faculties,  and  thus  diminishing  the 
amount  of  work  that  is  the  Master's  due.  In  the 
grosser  forms  of  self-indulgence  this  is  readily  seen 
and  acknowledged,  but  in  the  matter  of  a  false  system 
of  study  the  mind  is  too  often  blind  to  the  truth.  The 
sermon-writing  is  crowded  into  Saturday  night,  and 
the  preacher  goes  to  bed  after  midnight  to  catch  a 
troubled  sleep  and  rise  on  Sunday  morning  with  ach- 
ing head  and  drooping  powers,  when  he  ought  to  feel 
a  giant's  strength  and  rejoice  in  a  clear  and  healthy 
brain.  Or  he  may  tax  eyes  and  cerebrum  habitually 
by  long  sessions  of  night-study,  because  then  the 
house  is  quiet  and  he  will  not  be  interrupted  by  call- 


I08  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

ers,  to  which  the  temptation  to  every  student  is  cer- 
tainly very  great,  and  the  happy,  unbroken  hours  are 
looked  to  as  a  luxury.  Such  abuse  of  health  seldom 
receives  the  sternness  of  rebuke  it  deserves.  It  rather 
adds  to  the  interest  of  the  man  in  the  eyes  of  the 
community,  and  they  treat  his  steady  decline  admir- 
ingly and  romantically,  when  they  should  scourge 
]iim  and  the  reveling  minister  alike  with  censure  for 
destroying  the  bodies  God  gave  them  to  use  for  the 
preaching  of  the  truth  and  the  upbuilding  of  the 
Church.  It  is  no  merit  to  grow  pallid  with  study ;  it 
should  be  no  passport  to  honor.  Mens  sana  in  corpore 
sano.  The  mind  is  best  served  by  a  healthy  body, 
and  every  preacher  should  so  intersperse  his  studies 
with  the  more  locomotive  exercises  of  his  mxinistry  as 
to  preserve  the  tone  of  his  physical  system.  The 
variety  which  he  will  find  in  his  parish  duties  is  ample 
for  this  end,  and  it  is  a  sorry  substitute  for  this  natural 
method  to  betake  one's  self  to  Indian  clubs  or  the 
lifting  machine. 

(2).  The  pecuniary  habits  of  the  preacher  may 
bring  him  into  great  reproach.  A  speailating  min- 
ister draws  expunging  lines  through  all  his  ser- 
mons. His  interest  in  the  money-market  shows 
small  interest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  His  eager- 
ness to  buy  and  sell  makes  his  preaching  lifeless.  His 
people  lose  their  respect  for  him,  and  never  can 
count  him  sincere  in  holding  up  the  incomparable 


HABITS.  109 

glories  of  the  unseen  and  eternal.  He  Is  the  man 
with  the  muck  rake,  when  he  ought  to  be  the  inter- 
preter. An  extravagant  minister  makes  a  different, 
but  equally  unfavorable,  impression.  He  is  not  sup- 
posed to  be  a  worshiper  of  Mammon  taking  a  chief 
place  in  the  house  of  God,  but  he  is  stamped  as  a 
self-indulgent  man,  who  can  not  deny  himself  any 
gratification  that  arrests  his  eye.  He  is  felt  to  be 
lacking  in  that  self-control  which  is  so  important  an 
element  in  the  foundation  of  Christian  character,  and 
for  this  reason  is  liable  (as  is  the  speculating  minister) 
to  the  reputation  of  insincerity  in  his  ministration  of 
the  Gospel. 

Closely  allied  to  the  extravagant  minister  is  the 
borroiving  minister,  whose  visits  to  his  people  they 
find  so  expensive  that  they  take  pains  to  avoid  him 
when  out  of  his  pulpit.  They  naturally  consider  his 
calls  to  be  more  concerned  with  their  pockets  than 
with  their  souls.  Even  though  he  may  be  a  man 
gifted  in  conversation,  and  may,  under  the  direction 
of  his  conscience,  use  his  gift  for  the  spiritual  welfare 
of  his  people,  yet  the  object  will  be  missed  if  after 
every  exercise  of  his  pastoral  function  he  virtually 
hands  in  his  bill  for  attendance.  The  preacher  who 
throws  the  blame  of  his  borrowing  habits  upon  his 
wife's  extravagance,  exhibits  the  old  Adam  in  its 
original  meanness.  "  The  woman  whom  thou  gavcst 
to  be  with  me,  she  has  spent  my  salary  and  so  I  bor- 


K:     no  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

^     row."     The  confession  implied,  that  he  knows  not 
^     how  to  rule  his  own  house,  shows  him,  according  to 
the  divine  oracles,  unfit  to  take  care  of  the  Church  of 
,'      God. 

^\  These  evil  pecuniary  habits  are  too  often  found  in 

those  the  very  soul  of  whose  vocation  is  soiled  by 
any  irregularity  in  the  matter  of  money.  Excuses, 
of  course,  are  readily  found,  as  they  are  for  every  hu- 
man fault ;  but  no  excuse,  however  good  in  itself,  can 
save  the  preacher's  reputation.  The  stain  is  there,  no 
matter  how  it  got  there,  and  this  is  all  with  which  we 
have  to  do. 

It  is  as  appropriate  here  as  anywhere  to  answer  the 
question,  "  Should  a  preacher  who  has  been  guilty  of 
gross  sin  remain  in  the  ministry  ?  "  for  some  of  these 
habits  to  which  we  have  to  make  so  brief  a  reference 
may  easily  lead  to  overt  acts  that  shock  the  moral 
sense  of  the  community.  To  put  the  question  in  a 
more  pointed  shape,  giving  an  example  of  what  we 
mean  by  gross  sin,  "  Should  a  preacher  who  has  be- 
come a  drunkard  continue,  after  a  supposed  reform, 
to  exercise  his  ministerial  functions?"  If  the  reform 
be  a  true  one,  it  would  seem  to  be  a  hard  verdict  to 
shut  him  out  of  his  important  and  chosen  work,  for 
which  his  experience,  moreover,  has  thoroughly  fitted 
him.  Besides,  it  would  seem  that  such  a  man  could 
argue  more  feelingly  with  the  depraved  and  abandon- 
ed, having  a  more  vivid  sense  of  the  horrors  of  their 


HABITS.  1 1 1 

degradation.  These  considerations  would  lead  us  to 
answer  the  question  in  the  affirmative,  were  it  not 
that  another  element  of  consideration  more  important 
that  all  others  is  the  practical  one  of  the  personal 
reputation  of  such  a  preacher  as  a  stumbling-block 
to  the  community.  The  majority  of  men  will  not 
believe  in  the  genuineness  of  his  reform,  and  even 
those  that  do  so  believe  will  look  upon  him  as  a  weak 
and  uncertain  guide.  His  drunkenness  will  be  ever 
before  them  as  they  essay  to  listen  to  his  discourse, 
and  all  authority  will  be  eliminated  from  his  elo- 
quence. The  preacher  must  have  a  good  report  from 
them  that  are  without,  or  he  has  no  place  in  the  true 
apostolic  line.  Now,  if  we  apply  this  rule  to  the 
case  in  point,  we  must  answer  one  question  sorrow- 
fully, but  firmly,  in  the  negative.  The  preacher  who 
has  been  a  drunkard  can  no  longer  be  useful  as  a 
preacher.  He  may  find  many  ways  of  honoring  his 
Lord  and  serving  His  cause  where  he  will  not  be  pub- 
licly observed  and  criticised,  but  the  position  of  au- 
thority and  influence  he  has  forever  forfeited. 

Very  many  pernicious  habits  never  reach  to  such  a 
length  as  to  fall  under  this  illustration,  and  the  coun- 
sel of  a  bold  and  wise  friend  or  the  resuscitation  of 
conscientious  thought  may  break  up  an  evil  habit  and 
render  the  preacher  in  all  things  acceptable  and  ef- 
ficient. 

(3).  In  the  social  life  of  the  preacher  evil  habits 


1 1 2  TITE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

will  naturally  be  most  conspicuous  and  therefore  most 
harmful.  His  daily  contact  with  men  should  im- 
press upon  them  a  sense  of  the  truth  of  his  charac- 
ter and  the  dignity  of  his  calling.  Whatever  will  de- 
stroy confidence  in  these  must  necessarily  undermine 
his  usefulness  and  bring  discredit  upon  the  Christian 
ministry.  His  personal  and  pecuniary  habits  have  of 
course  a  social  side  and  touch  his  social  character,  but 
there  are  other  forms  of  habit  that  belong  more  di- 
rectly to  the  social  life,  to  which  we  now  make  refer- 
ence as  social  habits.  It  requires  great  watchfulness 
on  the  part  of  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel  to  avoid  the 
snares  that  Satan  lays  for  him  in  the  many-sided  in- 
tercourse of  life.  The  desire  to  please,  the  fear  to 
offend,  the  claims  of  politeness,  the  shrinking  from 
undue  responsibility,  the  dread  of  being  counted  as- 
suming :  these  commendable  causes  may  break  down 
the  barriers  that  ought  to  exist  between  the  teacher 
and  the  taught,  between  the  ruler  in  the  house  of  God 
and  those  who  are  under  his  spiritual  sway.  Besides 
these  virtuous  causes  there  may  be  the  workings  of  a 
carnal  nature  tempting  in  the  same  direction,  until 
these  combined  causes  bring  the  preacher  into  ques- 
tionable positions  and  identify  him  not  with  his  peo- 
ple as  such,  but  with  the  godless  world.  We  may 
enumerate  a  few  of  these  social  habits  which  render 
the  minister  unfit  for  his  holy  ofifice. 

(i).  Frivolous  habits,  which  mark  the  gay  world, 


HABITS.  113 

arc  altogether  unbecoming.  He  may  plead  his  right  to 
do  as  others,  that  he  did  not  lay  aside  his  humanity 
when  he  became  a  minister,  that  he,  too,  must  enjoy 
life ;  but  all  these  excuses,  so  often  given,  only  reveal 
the  moral  unfitness  of  the  man  the  more.  A  minis- 
ter has  not  the  right  to  do  as  others.  He  stands  on  a 
higher  plane,  and  the  nature  of  things  requires  that  he 
should  walk  by  a  higher  rule  in  the  details  of  daily 
life.  What  private  Christians  may  do  without  injury 
to  themselves  or  to  others  he  can  not  do.  If  we  can 
say  ^^  noblesse  oblige,^'  the  principle  is  eminently  true  in 
the  case  of  the  Christian  preacher.  Moreover,  the 
preacher's  humanity  should  be  of  so  sanctified  a  sort 
as  to  exhibit  tastes  and  inclinations  of  a  more  spiritual 
nature  than  those  found  in  ordinary  society.  He  does 
not  lay  aside  his  humanity  when  he  becomes  a  min- 
ister, but  he  exalts  his  humanity  and  assumes  a  new 
dignity  which  inheres  in  the  ofifice.  He  is  to  enjoy 
life,  but  he  finds  sources  of  joy  in  all  the  duties  of 
his  sublime  vocation,  and  is  not  compelled  to  drink  at 
the  world's  crowded  fountains.  Identification  with 
the  world's  gayety  and  fashion  must  always  defile  a 
minister's  garments.  The  fast  horse,  the  pleasure 
yacht,  the  dashing  dog-cart,  conspicuous  jewelry,  at- 
tendance at  ball,  opera,  or  theater — these  are  unfail- 
ing marks  of  a  minister  low-toned  in  his  piety  or 
eccentric  unto  uselessness  in  the  service  of  that  God, 
the  love  of  whom  is  put  by  the  Scriptures  in  exclud- 


114  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

ing  contrast  with  the  love  of  the  world.  That  there 
may  be  exceptional  cases  of  worthy  ministers  frequent- 
ing the  theater  in  practical  enforcement  of  a  danger- 
ous theory,  and  not  from  any  low  and  worldly  motive, 
I  would  not  deny  ;  but  I  have  no  hesitation  in  putting 
such  instances  under  the  head  of  unhappy  eccentrici- 
ties. It  is  a  meddling  with  a  clearly-defined  impurity 
on  the  theoretical  ground  of  its  possible  purification. 
Next  to  frivolous  and  gay  habits  we  may  note  hab- 
its of  undue  intimacy  with  the  other  sex.  It  need  not 
be  urged  that  a  preacher  should  live  above  the  suspicion 
of  looseness.  Forced  by  his  position  into  constant 
association  of  a  confidential  sort  with  both  sexes,  he 
needs  an  unceasing  watchfulness  against  indiscretion. 
He  is  not  simply  to  guard  against  his  own  feelings, 
but  he  is  to  avoid  appearances  that  could  be  readily 
misconstrued.  He  is  to  parry  a  foolish  admiration, 
that  offers  some  delicate  attention,  with  a  polite  in- 
difference, that  his  own  integrity  be  not  compromised. 
He  is  to  refuse  private  interviews,  except  in  such  ac- 
cessible places  as  parlors  and  drawing-rooms,  and  in 
visiting  the  sick  he  is  not  to  lay  aside  his  circumspec- 
tion. Gallantry  or  playing  the  beau  at  once  exposes 
the  preacher  to  the  rude,  but  righteous,  shafts  of  pub- 
lic criticism,  while  it  may  lead  his  own  heart  and  life 
into  lamentable  snares.  The  habit  of  self-laudation 
is  a  hindrance  to  a  successful  ministry.  The  minister 
is  to  forget  self  in  his  messafje.     He  is  to  hide  self 


HABITS. 


115 


behind  his  Master.  For  him  to  expatiate  on  his  own 
merits  is  to  forget  his  position  as  ambassador,  and  ex- 
hibit himself  as  principal.  Asking  members  of  the 
congregation  their  opinion  of  his  sermon  in  hopes  of 
obtaining  a  flattering  comment,  dilating  on  his  pro- 
found studies,  and  the  instances  of  his  marvelous 
power  over  men,  parade  of  titles  and  academic  honors, 
insertion  of  laudatory  articles  in  the  newspapers  of 
himself  and  his  work,  publication  of  the  numbers  that 
he  has  gathered  into  the  church,  enumeration  of  the 
revivals  he  has  started  ;  all  these  are  sickening  forms 
of  the  vanity  of  small  minds,  and  show  a  spirit  out  of 
harmony  with  the  grand,  self-forgetful  movement  of 
the  divine  life. 

We  mention  only  one  other  class  of  habits  that  should 
be  shunned  by  the  man  of  God,  those  which  sacrifice 
his  honor,  and  thus  take  from  him  the  strength  and 
beauty  of  truth.  The  preacher  who  exaggerates,  so 
that  the  coarse  world  exclaims,  "  he  lies,"  who  takes 
advantage  of  his  position  to  make  sweeping  assertions 
unsusceptible  of  proof,  who  manufactures  his  facts 
and  stakes  everything  on  an  antithesis ;  or  again,  the 
preacher  who  makes  engagements  only  to  break  them, 
who  is  ever  ready  to  say  yes  without  any  regard  to 
the  issue,  who  raises  hopes  and  leaves  them  to  wither; 
these  are  preachers  who  are  steadily  forming  a  senti- 
ment in  the  world  against  the  Gospel  which  they  pro- 
fess  to   preach,  for  there  is  nothing   on  which   the 


Il6  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

world  has  such  correct  notions  (however  little  it  prac- 
tices on  them)  as  the  necessity  of  truth  and  honor  in 
a  high  and  guiding  soul.  Having  thus  scanned  the 
principal  dispositions,  manners,  and  habits  that  should 
be  avoided  by  the  preacher  of  the  Gospel,  we  defer 
to  another  lecture  our  view  of  the  spiritual  life  that 
becomes  this  messenger  of  the  saving  grace  of  God. 


THE  PREACHER'S  GODWARD  LIVING. 


LECTURE   V. 

In  the  present  lecture  we  are  to  regard  the  preacher 
not  as  he  appears  before  men,  but  as  he  Hves  God- 
ward.  We  are  to  enter  into  his  inmost  being,  and 
touch  his  motives  and  feelings  and  the  secret  methods 
of  his  soul.  We  are  to  study  his  connection  with  the 
Source  of  spiritual  life,  and  see  that  this  connection 
is  such  in  kind  and  degree  as  to  justify  his  position 
in  the  Church  of  Christ  as  an  accredited  officer  and 
teacher  of  the  Word. 

In  the  mechanical  theory  of  the  Church  such  in- 
quiry would  be  unnecessary.  By  that  theory  men  are 
nothing,  authority  and  ritual  everything.  Grace  de- 
scends through  official  channels,  not  because  they 
are  gracious,  but  because  they  are  official.  The 
theory  will  allow  an  external  seemliness  as  conformed 
to  official  dignity,  but  any  inquiry  as  to  the  condition 
of  the  heart  would  be  considered  absurd.  A  Borgia 
is  as  good  as  a  Paul.  Consecration  is  not  disturbed 
by  sin.  Now,  just  contrary  to  this  is  the  spiritual 
theory  of  the  Church,  the  only  theory  sustained  by 
the  New  Testament  as  well  as  by  the  testimony  of  his- 
tory, for  in  history  the  nominal  Church  has  again 
and  again  proved  itself  no  Church  at  all.  The  spiritual 

("9) 


I20  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

theory  regards  the  inner  divine  life  of  the  soul  as  vital 
to  the  Church,  or  any  part  of  it.  A  Church,  or  any 
part  of  a  Church,  which  has  no  divine  life,  is  an  ap- 
pearance and  not  a  reality.  Removal  from  it  is  not 
schism.  Opposition  to  it  is  not  rebellion.  Official 
dignity  does  not  alter  the  truth  of  these  propositions. 
Outward  organization  may  exist,  and  men  may  con- 
veniently call  it  a  Church ;  but  the  New  Testament 
Church  is  not  there.  The  New  Testament  Church 
differs  from  the  Old  Testament  Church  in  that  the 
latter  had  a  national  side,  which  the  former  has  not. 
The  external  reality,  which  continued  in  spite  of  spirit- 
ual death  with  the  Old  Testament  Church, has  noplace 
with  the  New  except  as  the  spiritual  life  underlies  it. 
When  that  goes,  there  is  no  Church  at  all,  whatever 
men  may  style  the  corpse.  The  Kingdom  Christ  was 
to  establish  differed  from  the  Jewish  kingdom  in  that 
it  was  not  to  be  of  this  world.  It  was  to  be  a  spirit- 
ual kingdom,  and,  therefore,  would  have  an  external 
appearance  in  the  world  only  so  far  as  the  spiritual 
life  throbbed  beneath  it.  It  is  true  of  the  Church  as 
of  the  individual  Christian.  Each  exists  only  as  he 
has  the  spiritual  life.  Without  that  the  Church  is  no 
Church,  the  Christian  is  no  Christian.  In  the  old  dis- 
pensation it  was  different  for  the  reason  we  have  seen. 
If  the  spiritual  life  died  out,  still  the  Old  Testament 
Church  was  a  Church,  and  the  Jew  was  a  Jew.  The 
ritualistic  and  prelatical  organizations  have  overlooked 


THE  FEE  A  CHER'S  GOD  JVARD  LIVING.  1 2 1 

this  fundamental  difference  in  the  structure  of  the 
two  Churches,  and  have  built  on  their  error  most 
fatal  practices. 

In  accordance,  then,  with  this  spiritual  theory  of 
the  Church,  we  count  it  of  first  importance  to  define 
the  spiritual  character  of  the  preacher,  and  to  show 
the  fullness  of  his  connection  with  the  Head  of  the 
Church. 

Our  first  remark  is  that  the  true  preacher  must  be 
one  who  has  an  cjithusiastic  love  for  Jiis  Lord  and 
Saviour.  He  is  not  so  much  to  preach  a  proposition 
as  a  person,  and  the  power  of  the  presentation  will 
be  proportioned  to  his  love  of  the  person.  The  great 
facts  of  Christ's  mediatorial  life  should  be  ever  before 
his  mind's  eyes,  and  he  should  be  ever  conscious  of 
the  dependent  connection  of  his  own  life  with  that  of 
his  Lord.  There  is  a  cold,  intellectual  way  of  looking 
at  a  great  truth,  and  an  equally  cold  way  of  present- 
ing such  a  truth  with  logical  exactness ;  but  associa- 
tion with  a  truth  under  these  conditions  is  association 
with  a  marble  statue.  Certain  demands  of  the  intelli- 
gent nature  may  be  satisfied,  and  even  an  aesthetic 
rapture  may  be  reached  ;  but  when  the  heart's  depths 
are  considered,  this  satisfaction  and  this  rapture  are 
but  as  a  fleeting  thought  across  the  mind,  or  a  flush 
across  the  face.  The  profound  love  of  the  heart  must 
be  for  a  person.  The  religion  of  Christ  is  love  for  a 
person.      The  person  of  Christ  as  the  theanthropic 


1 2  2  THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

one,  with  all  the  powers  and  perfections  of  God,  and 
all  the  sympathy,  proximity,  and  likeness  of  man,  is 
the  object  of  the  believer's  adoration  and  affection. 
Out  of  that  personal  contact  of  the  soul  with  Christ 
comes   the  understanding   of   all    His   truth   as    He 
makes  it  known  in  the  written  Word.     The  soul  that 
so  walks  with  Christ  has  the  key  to  the  divine  knowl- 
edge which  is  recorded  for  spiritual  discernment.     In 
love  with  Christ,  he  knows  Christ's  mind,  according 
to  our  Lord's  own  statement,  "  all  things  that  I  have 
heard  of  my  Father  I  have  made  known  unto  you," 
and  according  to  that  other  Scripture,  "  We  have  the 
mind  of  Christ."     I  have  no  hesitation  in  declaring 
that  in  this  love  of   Christ  we  have  the  tap-root  of 
Christianity.     All  other  graces  of  the  Christian  life 
are  not  only  subordinate  to  this,  but  actually  derive 
their  vitality  from  this.     The  true  seat  of  orthodoxy 
is  the  heart.     Defective  doctrine,  even  in  its  proposi- 
tional  forms,  has  a  close  connection  w^ith  a  defective 
heart.     The  love  of  Christ,  if  it  be  real,  and  not  a 
sentimental  semblance,  is  the  invigorator  of  the  spir- 
itual intelligence.     It  is  out  of  this  love  comes  the 
power  to  search  the  deep  things  of  God.     "  We  have 
received  not  the   spirit  of  the  world,  but  the  Spirit 
which  is  of  God  ;  that  we  might  know  the  things  that 
are  freely  given  us  of  God,  which  things  also  we  speak, 
not  in  the  words  which  man's  wisdom  tcachcth,  but 
which  the  Holy  Ghost  teacheth,  Ttvevj.iaTiHoi^  7ivci'}.ia- 


THE  PRE  A  CHER'S  GOD  IV A  RD  LIVING.  \  2  3 

rina  avympivovr^^  (judging  spiritual  things  with  spir- 
itual experiences)."  Such  an  exalted  position  of  in- 
terpretation is  not  in  the  gift  of  the  schools,  but  belongs 
to  the  heart  that  is  closely  allied  (by  that  love  which 
alone  makes  a  close  alliance)  to  the  source  of  testi- 
mony. The  enthusiasm  of  such  a  love  is  not  the 
crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot,  but  a  full  and  steady  - 
surging  of  the  whole  life  like  the  grand  and  perpetual 
movement  of  the  ocean  under  the  attraction  of  its 
controlling  orb.  It  is  an  enthusiasm  so  profound  that 
it  touches  the  roots  of  feeling,  so  broad  that  it  per- 
meates every  conscious  faculty,  and  responds  to  its 
Infinite  Source  by  an  infinite  duration. 
/  The  preacher  should  find  in  this  enthusiastic  love 
of  Christ  the  guide  to  all  his  preaching.  Other  con- 
siderations will  appear  and  become  elements  of  his 
decision ;  but  mingled  with  these,  and  controlling 
them  all,  will  be  this  love  of  the  personal  Christ,  for 
whom  he  is  an  ambassador  to  the  people.  The 
preaching  that  comes  from  such  an  origin  will  always  f\ 
be  good  preaching.  It  was  this  that  made  the  Apos- 
tle Paul  the  brilliant  example  of  a  successful  preacher. 
He  told  the  secret  when  he  said,  "The  love  of  Christ! 
constraineth  me ; "  and  he  showed  the  action  of  that 
love  in  his  soul  when  he  said,  "  God,  who  commanded  ( 
the  light  to  shine  out  of  darkness,  hath  shined  in  my 
heart  to  give  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  gloryi 
of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ./    Only  a  heart| 


12  + 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


prepared  by  love  could  receive  upon  it  this  glorious 
photograph.  What  is  it  but  this  same  enthusiasm 
of  love  which  causes  him  to  exclaim,  "  Yea,  I  count 
all  things  but  loss  for  the  excellency  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord"  ?  When  he  is  dealing 
his  heaviest  blows  at  sin,  and  when  he  is  offering  his 
richest  consolations  and  instructions  to  believers,  he 
is  alike  full  of  the  presence  of  his  Lord  and  Saviour. 
You  see  that  he  never  loses  sight  of  the  incomparable 
object  of  his  affection,  and  hence  he  never  lowers  the 
tone  of  his  preaching.  Before  the  refined  Areopa- 
gites,  though  with  a  complimentary  exordium  and  a 
quotation  from  a  Greek  poet,  he  hastens  to  Jesus  and 
His  resurrection  from  the  dead.  The  same  Gospel, 
the  good  tidings  of  Jesus  the  Saviour,  fell  from  his 
lips  among  the  rude  inhabitants  of  Lycaonia.  The 
personal  Christ  ever  formed  the  warp  of  his  discourse, 
whatever  his  place,  condition,  or  circumstances,  the 
natural  overflow  of  his  heart  of  love.  This  practical 
knowledge  of  the  love  of  Christ,  through  a  responsive 
love  to  Him,  is,  in  the  apostolic  philosophy,  to  be 
filled  zvith  all  the  fullness  of  God.  From  such  a  res- 
ervoir, how  readily  the  preacher  can  draw  ! 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  every  Christian  ought  to 
possess  this  enthusiastic  love  of  Christ  of  which  we 
have  now  spoken,  but  it  is  equally  true  that  this  high 
level  is  not  reached  by  many.  That  for  which  we 
contend  is,  that  the  Christian  preacher  should  not  be 


THE  PREACHER'S  GOD  WARD  LIVING.  125 

one  of  these  many,  but  should  occupy  an  advanced 
position  in  the  heavenly  experiences  that  arc  granted 
by  the  grace  of  our  Lord. 

With  this  enthusiastic  love  of  Christ,  the  preacher 
must  needs  be  a  man  of  prayer ;  and  this  is  our 
second  view  of  his  spiritual  life.  Prayer  should  not 
be  an  event,  but  a  life.  He  should  fulfill  the  injunc- 
tion, "  Pray  without  ceasing,"  not  by  any  abnormal 
development  of  form  with  crossings  and  rosary,  but 
by  the  exhalation  of  a  life  surcharged  with  the  divine 
love.  In  such,  prayer  is  not  an  effort,  but  an  efflu-  / 
'  ence.  It  is  the  complement  of  walking  with  God ; 
for  where  there  is  walking  with  God  there  must  be 
talking  with  God.  He  knows  what  holy  familiarity 
with  his  Lord  is,  that  it  is  full  of  reverence  while  free 
as  childhood's  freedom  with  a  parent ;  that  it  has  in 
it  no  thread  of  earthly  vulgarity  or  rudeness,  while 
it  seizes  eagerly  the  privilege  of  unspeakable  inti- 
macy, and  that  it  has  as  its  factors  the  man's  confi- 
dence in  God  and  (what  is  most  amazing)  God's  con- 
fidence in  the  man.  The  preacher  who  holds  this 
conscious  relation  with  his  Lord  can  not  leave  a 
single  interest  of  his  parish  unsanctified  by  prayer. 
His  people  with  their  needs,  and  the  unbelieving 
members  of  his  congregation,  are  alike  brought  be- 
fore God.  His  lectures  and  sermons  all  spring  from 
prayer.  His  associations  and  conversations,  his  ad- 
vice, his  letters,  his  executive  work,  are  all  baptized 


126  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

in  prayer.  It  has  become  with  him  so  thoroughly  a 
habit  to  carry  everything  to  God  in  prayer,  that  he 
could  not  move  in  his  work  except  by  this  divine 
power. 

This  prayerful  life  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the 
hypocritical  life  that  uses  the  divine  name  so  readily 
in  ordinary  social  intercourse,  and  proclaims  its  own 
sanctity  by  set  pious  phrases.  The  prayerful  life  is 
not  manifested  by  cant,  but  by  consistency.  We  are 
speaking  in  this  sketch  of  a  preacher  on  his  side  God- 
ward,  not  on  his  side  manward.  We  are  speaking  of 
that  which  his  fellow-man  does  not  and  can  not  see, 
unless  by  its  effects.  In  the  minister,  such  as  we  de- 
scribe him,  there  is  no  experimenting  in  prayer,  as  if 
it  were  some  ruse  in  legerdemain  or  exercise  of  magic. 
His  faith  would  shrink  from  such  a  treatment  of  his 
intercourse  with  God.  His  prayer,  although  in  one 
sense  a  means  to  an  end,  is  in  another  and  higher  sense 
an  end  in  itself,  in  which  all  his  interests  are  involved. 
\^To  use  the  language  of  the  Psalmist,  he  dwells  in  the 
secret  place  of  the  Most  High;  he  is  hid  in  His  pavil- 
ion, in  the  secret  of  His  tabernacle,  in  the  secret  of 
His  presence.  )  These  words  are  the  inspired  defini- 
tions of  prayen  The  life  thus  depicted  is  the  life  of 
prayer.  In  such  a  view  of  prayer,  all  formal  and  me- 
chanical exercises  have  no  place  ;  Christian  paganism 
is  impossible. 

I  can  not  refrain  from  touching  here  what  I  believe 


THE  PREACHER'S  GOD  WARD  LIVING.  127 

to  be  a  very  erroneous  notion  regarding  prayer  and 
its  spiritual  attitudes,  a  notion  into  which  devout  and 
earnest  men  seem  to  fall.  From  the  two  parables  of 
''the  unjust  judge"  and  "the  friend  at  midnight" 
they  have  drawn  the  idea  that  we  must  be  importu- 
nate in  our  petitions  to  God ;  and  from  the  story  of 
Jacob  at  Peniel  they  have  derived  the  doctrine  of 
ivrcstling  in  prayer ;  and  then  to  complete  the  notion, 
they  have  introduced  the  Greek  word  from  the  Gos- 
pels and  tell  us  to  agonize  in  prayer.  They  forget 
that  importunity  is  impudence,  and  that  the  word 
"  importunity"  in  the  parable  of  "the  friend  at  mid- 
night "  is  the  right  translation  of  avaidEia,  which  may 
equally  be  translated  shainclcssncss  or  impudence.  The 
widow,  moreover,  is  represented  as  annoying  \\\q  judge, 
and  so  gaining  her  end.  Can  the  advocates  of  this 
theory  believe  in  an  impudent  annoying  of  God  ?  Do 
they  not  miss  the  whole  meaning  of  the  parables  when 
they  seek  an  analogy  between  the  widow  and  the 
friend  on  one  side,  and  the  believer  on  the  other? 
Surely  these  two  parables  are  arguments  by  contrast, 
and  not  by  analogy ;  and  the  argument,  if  put  in  the 
form  of  a  proposition,  would  be,  "If  this  widow  can 
succeed  against  her  adversary  by  annoying  a  human 
and  unjust  judge,  the  believer  can  succeed  by  appeal- 
ing to  a  divine  and  just  Judge  against  his  spiritual 
foes ;  and  if  a  friend  can  persuade  another  on  earth 
through  impudence,  surely  the  persevering  faith  of  a 


1 2  8  ^"//^  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

child  of  God  will  be  recognized  by  a  loving  Heavenly- 
Father."  The  lesson  is  one  of  perseverance,  but  not 
of  importunity,  as  the  stereotyped  word  has  it.  These 
interpreters  again  forget  that  Jacob  got  nothing  at 
Peniel  but  a  broken  leg  by  his  wrestling,  but  that 
when  he  ceased  wrestling  and  held  on  in  prayer,  his 
petition  was  granted,  and  he  had  power  with  God. 
He  prevailed,  not  by  wrestling,  but  by  prayer,  and 
we  have  now  most  strangely  mixed  the  two  things 
together,  and  talk  of  ''wrestling  in  prayer"  and  "wrest- 
ling prayer."  An  immense  amount  of  religious  litera- 
ture indulges  in  this  paradox.  You  might  as  well 
talk  of  "antagonistic  peace"  and  "hostile  love."  Ja- 
cob's wrestling  was  his  self-reliance.  He  was  going  to 
overcome  this  stranger  who  had  attacked  him  by  the 
Jabbok  in  the  night,  probably  thinking  him  a  robber 
of  the  road  ;  but  when,  with  his  thigh  out  of  joint,  he 
recognized  a  divine  agent  in  this  encounter,  he  gave 
up  his  vain  wrestling,  perceived  the  significance  of  the 
remarkable  incident,  and  held  on  to  the  heavenly  per- 
son with  a  prayer  for  a  blessing.  As  to  the  word 
"  agonize,"  as  applied  to  prayer,  it  arises  from  two 
errors ;  first,  the  supposition  that  a'yojv!^oj.tai  and 
"  agonize  "  are  synonymous ;  and  secondly,  from  sup- 
posing that  our  Saviour  bearing  the  sin  of  the  world 
is  any  example  for  us  in  that  regard.  ^Ayc^vl^opmi  is 
simply  "  to  engage  in  a  contest  for  a  prize,"  and  when 
the  word  is  used  in  urging  the  sinner  to  salvation,  he 


THE  PREACHER'S  GOD  WARD  LIVING. 


129 


is  exhorted  to  strive  like  a  runner  at  the  games,  with 
all  his  might  and  attention,  to  enter  the  strait  gate ; 
and  our  Lord's  agony  in  the  garden,  even  if  the  word 
involve  what  we  call  agony  (which  is  very  doubtful — 
it  more  likely  means  "an  intense  strife  o'f  soul"),  like 
the  strong  crying  and  tears  in  Heb.  v.  7,  referring  to 
the  same  event,  belongs  uniquely  to  our  Lord  as  the 
bearer  of  our  sins.  Because  He  so  suffered,  we  are 
freed  from  such  suffering.  "  There  is  no  condemna- 
tion to  them  that  are  in  Christ  Jesus."  Now,  in  op- 
position to  all  this  wrestling,  agonizing,  importuning 
prayer,  the  Word  of  God  bids  us  patiently  and  in  im- 
plicit faith  to  persevere  in  laying  all  our  cares  before 
God,  knowing  that  He  is  just  and  loving,  and  know- 
ing, too,  that  He  will  most  certainly  give  us  all  that 
we  ask  as  far  as  His  wisdom  will  allow.  This  implies 
calmness,  and  not  agony,  in  the  mind  of  the  peti- 
tioner. It  is  true  that  when  one  is  in  agony,  he  may 
go  to  God ;  but  in  that  case  the  prayer  can  not  be 
called  an  agonizing  prayer :  rather  it  is  a  reliever  of 
agony.  Nor  is  that  the  idea  of  agonizing  prayer  for 
which  these  advocates  for  pious  desperation  contend. 
They  mean  that  the  prayer  itself  shall  be  a  torturing 
experience,  a  fearful  struggle,  as  with  a  wild  beast,  in 
which  the  soul  is  to  be  rent  and  lacerated  and  left 
half  dead.  They  have  a  thought  that  there  is  some 
virtue  in  the  agony  and  suffering,  as  a  sort  of  penance, 
striving  to  do  what  Christ  has  already  done  for  us. 
6* 


I30 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


I  have  been  led  into  this  brief  episode  on  the  char- 
acter of  prayer,  because  of  what  I  deem  the  pernicious 
teaching,  found  in  the  pubHshed  memoirs  of  many 
preachers,  who  are  represented  as  going  through  fear- 
ful agonies  in  prayer  in  behalf  of  their  flocks,  books 
which  lead  young  ministers  toward  false  aims,  and 
hold  up  suffering  and  groaning  as  forming  the  chief 
elements,  or  at  least  the  surest  tests,  of  a  genuine  re- 
ligious life.  I  will  not  deny  that  there  is  much  in  our 
lives  to  make  us  suffer  and  groan,  but  I  do  deny  most 
emphatically  that  the  Scriptures,  which  bid  us  to  re- 
joice evermore,  set  the  suffering,  groaning  condition 
before  us  as  an  end  to  be  desired,  especially  in  that 
highest  and  sweetest  of  all  experiences,  the  soul's 
contact  with  God  in  prayer;  nor  is  a  Christian  preach- 
er in  any  sense  a  priest  bearing  the  sins  of  his  people 
and  passing  through  an  expiatory  agony  in  their 
behalf. 

Closely  allied  to  prayer  is  mcditatioji  upon  the  di- 
vine Word,  and  in  the  secret  preparation  of  the 
preacher  for  his  work,  this  should  hold  a  large  place. 
I  do  not  here  refer  to  the  critical  study  of  the  Script- 
ures. I  have  spoken  of  that  in  a  former  lecture, 
when  treating  of  the  intellectual  qualifications  of  the 
preacher.  But  I  mean  the  careful  and  prayerful  ap- 
plication of  the  truth  fresh  from  the  Word  to  the  life 
of  the  preacher,  the  impressing  of  the  heart,  that  is, 
the   affections  and   will,  with   its  vital  meaning,  so 


THE  PRE  A  CHER' S  GOD  IV A  RD  LI  VING.  \  3  i 

planting  it  that  it  will  live  and  grow  and  thrive  in 
the  preacher's  life.  The  ordinary  study  in  preparing 
a  sermon  does  not  necessarily  do  this.  Very  much  of 
the  reading  of  the  preacher  may  even  lead  him  away 
from  this  important  exercise.  The  very  urgency  of 
parish  cares  may  interfere  with  its  due  regard.  In  no 
particular  do  I  believe  it  more  imperative  in  a  preach- 
er's life  to  lay  down  a  rule  and  abide  by  it  against 
all  interferences  than  in  this.  The  time  must  be  fixed 
and  set  apart  from  all  other  use.  You  can  not  mingle 
this  exercise  of  meditation  with  any  other,  except 
prayer,  of  which  it  may  be  said  to  form  part.  In 
meditation  the  Word  is  brought  into  direct  con- 
nection with  one's  self,  showing  privileges,  powers,  du- 
ties, comforts,  arguments,  that  furnish  the  man  of 
God  unto  every  good  work.  The  Word  of  God  is  not 
the  word  of  man,  although  many  influential  teachers 
are  now  endeavoring  to  drag  it  down  to  that  low 
level.  It  is  the  Word  of  God,  with  a  life  and  power 
divine,  and  is  in  a  plane  out  of  all  comparison  with 
human  productions.  That  there  is  a  human  element 
in  its  construction  is  very  evident,  and  of  that  human 
element  we  may  use  thoughts  and  words  such  as  we 
use  of  men's  books.  But  there  is  a  divine  element  in 
this  Bible  that  is  beyond  man's  manipulation  and 
criticism,  to  which  prophets  and  apostles  and  Christ 
himself  testify,  and  this  element  is  not  in  a  part  of 
the  book,  but  in  all  the  book,  pervading  every  sen- 


132 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


tence  from  the  first  of  Moses  to  the  last  of  John. 
Every  theory  of  inspiration  that  claims  less  than  that 
renders  the  Bible  useless  as  an  inspired  book,  is  di- 
rectly counter  to  the  teachings  of  Christ,  and  leaves 
the  Church  without  a  trusty  guide.  The  Holy  Spirit 
is  the  author,  guardian,  and  applier  of  the  Word.  He 
is  the  Spirit  of  truth,  and  he  reveals  the  truth  to  the 
believer.  The  things  given  us  of  God  are  only  known 
by  us  as  the  Spirit  interprets  them.  So  the  apostle 
assures  us.  Holy  men  of  old  spake  as  they  were 
moved  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  for  that  reason  the 
Scripture  is  not  of  private  interpretation,  but  must  be 
interpreted  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  the  soul.  Great 
commentators  who  were  unregenerate  men,  have-not 
understood  the  Word  with  all  their  learning.  There 
is  a  meaning  below  the  letter  that  only  the  heart 
filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost  can  comprehend.  And 
this  is  the  meaning  that  the  preacher  must  reach. 
His  meditation  seeks  as  objective  to  have  this  holy 
sense  of  Scripture  permeate  his  being  and  inform 
every  faculty  of  his  nature.  He  knows  that  the  Bi- 
ble without  the  Holy  Spirit  is  a  snare,  just  as  Christ 
without  the  Holy  Spirit  is  a  savor  of  death. 

The  preacher  in  his  meditation  on  the  Word  com- 
pares Scripture  with  Scripture.  It  is  one  Book  from 
Genesis  to  Revelation.  Fifteen  centuries  and  sixty 
different  men  made  a  perfect  unity,  because  God 
wrought  in  it  all.     The  preacher  sits  not  at  Moses' 


THE  PREACHER'S  GOD  WARD  LIVING. 


133 


feet  nor  at  Paul's,  but  at  the  feet  of  Christ,  and  re- 
ceives the  truth  precisely  as  the  disciples  received  it 
from  the  mouth  of  the  Master. 

Then  only  is  a  Christian  preacher  preaching  aright 
Avhen  he  is  a  carrier  of  God's  Word  to  the  people, 
and  therefore  profound  and  constant  meditation  on 
that  Word  is  an  absolute  necessity  in  his  preparation, 
for  God's  Word  is  not  simply  the  letter,  but  the  spirit 
%vith  the  letter,  and  the  knowledge  of  this  is  gained 
not  by  scholarship,  but  by  meditation. 

Another  feature  of  the  preacher's  spiritual  life  is 
tJic  earnest  personal  desire  for  the  conversion  of  souls 
and  the  edification  of  the  ClmrcJi..  This  life  is  to  him 
the  grand  opportunity,  not  for  personal  ease,  not  for 
earthly  gain,  but  for  delivering  men  from  the  thrall- 
dom  of  sin.  He  sees  ruined  souls  on  every  side.  He 
sees  a  power  that  can  save  them.  He  sees,  moreover, 
that  this  power  is  in  some  sort  committed  to  him,  that 
he  is  permitted  to  be  part  of  the  chain  of  causality, 
whose  last  link  brings  salvation.  He  is  eager  to  use 
the  power.  He  is  not  to  be  discouraged  by  hard 
hearts  or  gross  sins,  for  the  word  he  wields  is  the 
Word  of  God,  living  and  powerful  and  sharper  than 
any  two-edged  sword,  piercing  even  to  the  dividing 
of  soul  and  spirit,  and  is  able  to  discern  the  thoughts 
and  intents  of  the  heart.  He  is  engaged  in  no  experi- 
ment, for  he  works  under  the  stimulus  of  a  divine 
promise,  and   in  the   use  of   a  divine   power.      The 


1 3  4        THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

"  homo  sum  et  nil  humani  a  me  alienum  puto  "  has  in 
him  a  far  higher  application  than  ever  entered  the 
imagination  of  the  noble  Carthaginian  slave.  He 
sees  in  his  fellow-men  those  for  whom  Heaven  in  its 
love  has  labored.  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he 
gave  his  only  begotten  Son  that  whosoever  believeth 
in  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life." 
This  is  no  mere  statement  of  a  dry  truth,  but  a  voice 
from  heaven  announcing  the  most  real  of  all  realities, 
the  throbbing  fact  that  touches  every  human  soul, 
and  is  the  one  connecting  cord  of  human  history.  To 
work  with  God  in  this  dynamic  of  love,  is  to  him 
like  standing  by  the  throne  of  the  eternal  glory.  He 
feels  the  godlike  impulse  in  his  own  heart,  and  shares 
the  joy  of  heaven  over  the  repentant  sinner.  No 
botanist  could  ever  so  watch  over  the  development 
of  leaf  and  flower,  as  he  watches  the  growth  of  grace 
in  the  hearts  of  his  people,  feeling  his  own  soul  ex- 
panding with  every  push  of  spiritual  vitality  he  sees 
in  others.  Such  a  preacher  is  always  full  of  mission- 
ary zeal,  for  this  principle  is  the  missionary  principle. 
He  is  in  thorough  sympathy  with  the  Gospel's  prog- 
ress in  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  is  so  informed  of  its 
triumphs,  that  his  prayers  for  distant  missions  have 
no  mechanical  cast,  but  are  as  hearty  as  though  he 
himself  were  on  the  foreign  shore,  and  praying  for 
the  work  of  his  own  hands.  He  sees  the  movements 
of  States  and  men  only  as  relating  to  the  establish- 


THE  PREACHER'S  GOD  WARD  LIVING. 


135 


ment  of  the  kingdom  which  is  to  fill  the  whole  earth. 
He  knows  that  the  stone  cut  out  of  the  mountain 
without  hands  is  to  strike  the  image  on  its  feet,  and, 
with  the  iron,  clay,  brass,  silver,  and  gold  broken  to 
pieces  together,  and  become  like  the  chaff  of  the  sum- 
mer threshing-floors,  the  stone  that  smote  the  image  is 
to  become  a  great  mountain  and  fill  the  whole  earth. 
His  longing  for  souls  is  thus  no  vain  hunger,  making 
wretched  the  sufferer,  but  a  glorious  hope  fed  daily  by 
the  action  of  grace  in  the  world,  and  hastening  to  its 
consummate  fruition. 

This  earnest  longing  for  conversion  of  men  is  but 
the  normal  action  of  that  divine  aydixri,  which  moves 
in  God  in  all  His  grace  toward  us,  and  which  becomes 
a  motive  in  one  who  is  begotten  of  God.  It  is  dis- 
tinct from  cpLladEXqjia^  which  finds  its  exercise  to- 
ward the  brethren,  since  it  passes  beyond  all  limits 
and  seeks  its  expression  wherever  man  dwells.  Of 
all  the  graces  it  is  the  grandest,  as  the  apostle  has 
emphatically  told  us,  for  all  the  others  have  a  color- 
ing of  human  need  or  weakness  or  limitation,  but  this 
stands  out  as  the  special  feature  of  the  divine  image 
in  us.  In  none  but  a  regenerated  soul  can  any  sem- 
blance of  this  grace  be  found.  It  is  foreign  to  poet, 
philosopher,  priest,  or  lawgiver  throughout  all  the  an- 
nals of  paganism.  Human  nature  has  not  a  shred  of 
it  in  its  composition.  We  do  find  in  the  natural  man 
a  faith,  a  virtue,  a  knowledge,  a  self-control,  a  patience. 


136  THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

a  piety,  and  a  brotherly  love,  all  defective  as  they  are, 
but  where,  out  of  the  circle  of  the  hearts  renewed  by 
the  Holy  Ghost,  do  we  see  this  ayani],  this  untiring, 
universal  love  of  man,  seeking  his  renewal  and  salva- 
tion? It  is  this  which  especially  makes  the  preacher's 
work  so  very  different  from  all  other  occupations  of 
man,  however  dignified  and  useful  they  may  be.  He 
is  not  the  servant  of  reward,  but  the  servant  of  a  di- 
vine impulse.  He  does  not  get  his  life  from  his  peo- 
ple, but,  with  them,  he  gives  life  to  others.  In  this 
godlike  attribute,  he  is  not  a  receiver,  but  a  source, 
and  in  its  exercise  he  feels  the  exalted  joy  of  its  ab- 
solute character. 

Another  spiritual  characteristic  of  the  true  preacher 
is  Jiis  anticipation  of  the  final  trinnipJi  of  grace  in 
glory.  This  is  the  broad  and  bright  background  of 
the  prospect  ever  before  his  mind.  The  towers  and 
domes  of  the  eternal  city  are  full  in  view.  There  is 
where  his  soul  rests,  wherever  has  been  its  excursus. 
It  comes  back  to  that  satisfaction  of  hope,  the  bliss- 
ful finality,  and  all  its  faintness  or  weariness  is  re- 
moved. All  his  labors  here  have  their  aim  and  their 
incentive  in  that  blessed  hope,  that  differs  from  aU 
human  hopes  in  its  undiscounted  completeness.  "  It 
maketh  not  ashamed."  As  we  read  the  apostolic 
epistles,  we  are  struck  with  the  vividness  of  this  fu- 
ture before  the  apostle's  eye.  He  makes  it  the  ful- 
crum of  his  lever,  whenever  he  urges  Christians  to 


THE  PREACHER'S  GOD  WARD  LIVING. 


137 


greater  zeal  and  consistency  of  life.  It  is  the  glory 
with  Christ,  with  the  body  of  the  resurrection  assim- 
ilated to  the  perfection  of  the  soul,  that  forms  the  in- 
spiring war-cry  of  this  heroic  general  on  the  field  of 
faith.  He  never  loses  sight  of  this  grand  object  for 
a  moment.  It  lightens  his  labors,  benumbs  him  to 
suffering,  makes  self-denial  joyful,  and  sheds  an  an- 
ticipatory splendor  upon  his  person  and  life.  With  a 
thousand  conflicts  upon  him,  he  cries,  as  above  them 
all,  "  My  light  affliction,  which  is  but  for  a  moment, 
worketh  for  me  a  far  more  exceeding  and  eternal 
weight  of  glory,"  and  again,  *'  The  sufferings  of  this 
present  time  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the 
glory  which  shall  be  revealed  in  us."  The  possession 
of  this  vivid  anticipation  is  what  may  be  called  by  that 
exceedingly  awkward,  but  indispensable  word  "  heav- 
enly-mindedness."  We  have  the  citizen  of  heaven 
living  in  accordance  with  his  citizenship  and  gauging 
everything  here  by  its  connections  with  the  ultimate 
glory.  By  a  spiritual  instinct  these  heavenly  weights 
and  measures  are  employed — an  instinct  which  is 
strengthened  by  a  constant  practice.  The  preacher 
has  in  mind  that  he  is  to  give  account  of  his  high 
stewardship,  and  the  bema  of  Christ  is  ever  before  his 
eyes,  but  it  is  not  a  threat — it  is  an  incentive.  It 
nerves  him  to  greater  energy,  not  through  fear  of  loss, 
but  through  hope  of  unspeakable  gain.  He  is  not 
working  legally,  but  lovingly,  and  the  prospect  is  one 


138  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

of  an  unearthly  and  unending  joy.  He  sees  in  his 
anticipation  the  home  beyond  filled  with  the  ransomed 
and  sanctified,  and  the  Lord  of  salvation  rejoicing  in 
the  midst  of  those  he  has  rescued,  and  he  feels  the 
connection  of  his  own  work  and  life  with  this  sublime 
consummation.  This  experience  is  a  perpetual  feast 
to  his  soul.  It  cheers  him  when  immediate  results  of 
his  labors  are  not  forthcoming,  and  when  seasons  of 
spiritual  coldness  would  otherwise  depress  his  ener- 
gies and  render  him  faint-hearted.  It  prevents  him 
from  measuring  his  work  by  immediate  issues,  and 
from  making  the  sad  mistake  of  depending  on  the 
approbation  and  applause  of  the  multitude.  What 
the  world  thinks  of  him  is  a  matter  of  small  moment, 
for  his  work  is  beyond  the  reach  of  journalists  and 
statisticians.  He  labors  in  faith,  and  his  faith  can  be- 
hold the  harvest  beyond  all  the  discouraging  obstacles 
that  intervene.  He  recognizes  his  own  commission, 
and  he  knows  the  power  that  came  with  the  com- 
mission, and  the  promise  that  came  with  the  power. 
These  are  sureties  enough  for  him.  The  problem  is 
a  simple  one.  He  has  nothing  to  do  with  counting 
or  measuring,  only  with  working  and  hoping,  and 
whatever  the  world  without  may  think  or  say,  the 
world  within  his  own  heart  is  satisfied.  It  is  no  mer- 
cenary feeling  that  thus  has  respect  unto  the  recom- 
pense of  reward,  any  more  than  it  was  a  mercenary 
feeling  that  led  the  Lord  of  grace,  for  the  joy  set  be- 


THE  PREACHER'S  GOD  WARD  LIVING.  13Q 

fore  Him,  to  endure  the  cross  and  despise  the  shame. 
It  is  the  highest  form  of  disinterested  activity  that 
finds  its  rest  in  the  joy  of  the  completed  benefit  of 
the  human  object.  There  could  be  no  love  and  hence 
no  worth  in  the  action,  if  there  were  not  a  joy  im- 
pending in  the  success.  The  fact  that  this  joy  is  in  the 
felicity  of  others  utterly  invalidates  the  idea  of  a  mer- 
cenary motive  in  the  act.  The  heavenly  prospect  is, 
then,  no  selfish  one,  but  the  very  goal  of  a  godly  love. 
It  is  here  we  can  see  the  incomparably  exalted  posi- 
tion of  the  Christian  preacher,  who,  unfettered  by  the 
lower  cares  of  earthly  accumulation,  can  give  his  time, 
talents,  and  energies  to  the  one  direct  object  of  lifting 
earth  to  heaven. 

Bearing  in  mind,  then,  these  traits  of  the  spiritual 
life  which  become  the  preacher,  we  can  see  what 
should  be  the  style  of  another  spiritual  exercise  which 
belongs  to  him — I  mean  self-examination.  There  has 
been,  I  think,  a  very  pernicious  definition  given  to  this 
exercise.  It  has  been  made  a  microscopic  inspection  of 
motive  and  thought,  with  a  special  view  to  discover 
all  the  sinfulness  of  the  heart,  in  order  to  its  elimina- 
tion. But  surely  this  is  no  process  for  a  man  to 
undertake.  The  Psalmist  threw  it  upon  God  :  "  Search 
me,  O  God,  and  know  my  heart :  try  me  and  know 
my  thoughts :  and  see  if  there  be  any  wicked  way  in 
me,  and  lead  me  in  the  way  everlasting."  If  a  man 
attempt  this  work,  he  must  make  a  lamentable  failure. 


140  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

The  strongest  microscope  will  not  reveal  to  him  all  his 
depravity,  and  if  it  did,  he  would  be  no  nearer  to  its 
elimination.  He  is  on  the  wrong  road  for  that  blessed 
.result.  Moreover,  such  a  raking  over  of  his  sins  will 
only  fill  him  with  despondency.  He  will  be  like  a 
sick  man  pr^dng  into  the  minutize  of  his  disease,  ex- 
amining pulse  and  tongue  for  himself,  and  surround- 
ing himself  with  a  score  of  bottles  of  medicines  for 
his  different  symptoms.  He  will  not  be  likely  to  re- 
cover, but  will  add  hypochondria  to  his  other  troubles. 
Now,  no  such  self-examination  is  recommended  by 
the  Word  of  God.  Only  twice  in  the  Scriptures  is 
self-examination  mentioned.  In  the  one  case  the 
Corinthian  Christians  are  urged  to  examine  them- 
selves and  see  if  they  discerned  the  Lord's  body  as 
represented  in  the  Lord's  supper ;  and  in  the  other, 
the  same  Corinthians  are  told  to  examine  themselves 
whether  they  were  in  the  faith,  the  alternatives  being 
the  having  Jesus  Christ  in  them,  or  the  being  repro- 
bates. 

In  the  first  case,  it  was  simply  a  question  as  to 
whether  they  understood  the  meaning  of  the  eucha- 
rist,  and  approached  it  as  an  ordinance  representing 
communion  with  Jesus.  In  the  other  case,  it  was 
simply  a  question  as  to  their  being  Christians  or 
reprobates.  Were  they  believers  or  not?  In  neither 
case  was  there  the  slightest  hint  of  self-torture,  and 
the  putting  of  crucial  questions  to  the  soul.     Rather, 


THE  PREACHER'S  GOD  WARD  LIVING.  141 

it  was  a  summons  to  look  at  Christ  and  see  Him  to 
be  everything  to  the  soul,  and  so  to  settle  the  ques- 
tion of  their  Christian  standing.  It  was  a  cheerful, 
happy  exercise,  not  a  doleful  and  lugubrious  one. 
How  could  one,  such  as  we  have  attempted  to  de- 
scribe him,  full  of  the  love  of  Christ,  walking  with 
God,  meditating  on  His  Word,  longing  for  the  con- 
version of  men,  and  ever  anticipating  the  final  triumph 
in  glory — how  could  such  a  one  willfully  renounce  all 
his  privileges  and  stultify  himself  by  a  morbid  in- 
ventory of  his  sins  ?  The  life  such  as  we  have  de- 
scribed it,  and  the  critical  analysis  of  feeling  and 
motive,  are  incompatible  with  one  another.  There 
are  too  many  published  diaries  of  prominent  believ- 
ers, whose  unhappy,  nervous  condition  has  been 
spread  out  before  the  world  as  exemplifying  a  lofty 
Christian  experience.  The  Gospel  is  glad  tidings  of 
pardon  and  peace  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  soul  that 
accepts  the  Gospel  has  no  right  to  be  inspecting  its 
stock  of  sin.  If  it  look  in  at  all,  it  should  be  to  see 
Christ  there.  Ovk  eTnyivojoKere  iavrov?,  on  It/oou? 
XpiGTOi  ev  vfXiv  effriv-  (Know  ye  not  your  own  selves 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  in  you  ?)  Looking  unto  Jesus  is 
the  attitude  of  increasing  holiness ;  while  looking  in 
at  one's  self  is  the  attitude  of  self-righteousness.  What, 
then,  is  self-examination  ?  As  the  Word  of  God  ex- 
plains it  to  us,  it  is  such  a  trying  or  proving  {rteip- 
a^ers  and  SoKijua^etco  are   the  Greek  words)  of  our 


142 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


lives  as  to  settle  the  question  whether  we  belong 
to  Christ  or  to  the  world.  This  surely  is  not  done  by 
picking  over  our  sins.  It  is  done  by  directing  the 
soul  toward  Christ,  and  seeing  if,  when  thus  directed, 
His  image  is  reflected  on  it,  if  our  heart  responds  with 
gratitude,  affection,  and  trust  to  His  wonderful  love. 
Self-examination  on  the  part  of  a  believer,  when  thus 
reduced  to  its  simplest  terms,  is  looking  at  Christ,  ac- 
companied by  a  comforting  and  stimulating  assurance 
that  we  are  sustained  by  His  grace.  That  action  will 
immediately  suggest  and  promote  the  sloughing  off 
of  any  inconsistent  habit  or  questionable  principle. 

The  preacher  should  constantly  bring  his  soul  in 
this  way  to  the  touchstone,  and  the  exercise  will  be 
like  that  of  prayer,  or  that  of  meditation  on  the 
Word,  a  favorite  source  of  joy  as  well  as  progress. 
We  have  tried  to  indicate  in  this  sketch  that  a 
preacher  of  Christ's  Gospel  should  be  before  all  things 
else  a  spiritual  man,  an  example  before  his  people 
and  the  world  of  a  man  walking  with  God.  His  in- 
tercourse, therefore,  with  the  world  will  always  be  that 
of  ministry,  and  not  of  fellowship.  Wherever  he 
touches  the  world,  it  will  be  to  impart  a  benefit,  and 
with  this  object  no  other  will  commingle.  It  is  very 
true  that  every  Christian  should  answer  to  this  de- 
scription, and  so  our  proposition  may  run  in  this  way, 
that,  besides  all  other  special  qualifications  of  body, 
mind,  disposition,  manner,  and  habits,  which  may  be 


THE  PREACHER'S  GOD  WARD  LIVING.  143 

peculiarly  clerical,  the  preacher  should  be,  in  an  emi- 
nent degree,  a  Christian  in  his  spiritual  life.  And  this 
last  qualification  is  the  most  essential  of  all.  With- 
out it,  talents  and  capacity  are  only  instruments  of 
wounding  the  Saviour  in  the  house  of  His  friends. 


THE   PREACHER   AND   THE   WORLD. 


LECTURE    VI. 

In  the  preceding  lectures  I  have  endeavored  to  de- 
scribe the  personal  characteristics  of  a  true  Christian 
preacher  in  all  the  departments  of  his  being.  In  the 
present  lecture  I  purpose  to  inquire  how  far  and  in 
what  way  one  possessing  such  characteristics  could  or 
should  be  connected  with  the  public  life  of  men,  out- 
side of  purely  ecclesiastical  movements. 

We  recognize  in  the  great  march  of  civilization 
many  valuable  contributing  forces,  that  have  no  neces- 
sary ecclesiastical  character  or  connection.  There  are 
many  moral  reforms,  which  may  occupy  a  prominent 
position  before  the  world,  and  whose  influence  may 
be  of  immense  benefit  to  the  community ;  there  are 
political  schemes  which  are  conceived  and  furthered 
in  the  spirit  of  a  true  patriotism  ;  and  there  is  culture 
in  art,  science,  and  literature,  which  serves  to  repel 
barbarism  and  refine  society.  Now,  it  is  a  practical 
question  of  great  importance,  to  what  extent  and  in 
v/hat  fashion  shall  these  agents  of  civilization  be  em- 
ployed and  directed  by  the  Christian  preacher?  Dif- 
ferent and  contrary  views  are  held.  We  find  a  small 
school  of  earnest  men  who  would  cut  off  all  connec- 
tion whatever  between  the  world  without  and   the 

(147) 


148  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

Church,  and  shut  up  all  Christian  effort  to  the  actual 
communion  of  saints.  One  section  of  this  school 
would  permit  such  connection  with  the  world  as  is 
necessary  for  direct  proclamation  of  the  Word,  but 
no  more.  At  the  other  extreme,  we  find  Christians 
who  declare  that  religion  is  a  matter  of  the  inner  life, 
and  therefore  does  not  change  our  intercourse  with 
the  world.  It  is  a  matter  between  us  and  God,  and 
too  sacred  to  be  brought  down  into  the  matter  of  an 
earthly  intercourse.  The  two  spheres  of  Church  and 
the  world  are  entirely  distinct,  and  we  are  in  both  and 
must  live  in  each  according  to  its  laws.  This  school 
permits  a  free  mixing  with  the  world  in  all  its  pursuits 
of  business  and  pleasure,  with,  of  course,  the  excep- 
tion of  anything  that  is  clearly  immoral. 

The  truth  seems  to  lie  between  these  extremes. 
In  the  first  of  these  extremes  there  is  a  narrowness 
that  has  the  look  of  moroseness,  and  is  calculated  to 
misrepresent  the  Gospel  of  love.  It  is  apt  to  repel 
men  from  the  truth,  when  truth's  propagators  imitate 
the  tortoise,  and,  on  the  approach  of  a  stranger,  shut 
up  their  shell.  There  is  also  the  aspect  of  haughty 
assumption  in  a  forced  seclusion  from  the  world's 
moral  side,  or  rather  from  that  side  which  has  no  im- 
moral character.  There  is,  furthermore,  a  departure 
from  our  Lord's  example,  for  He  certainly  mingled 
freely  with  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men  at  all 
times,  living  what  might  be  called  an  eminently  public 


THE  PREACHER  AND  THE   WORLD.  140 

life.  He  did  not,  indeed,  enter  into  the  political  life 
of  the  day,  because,  in  the  first  place,  there  was  no 
political  life,  except  for  imperial  satellites  or  advent- 
urous intriguers ;  and  in  the  second  place.  His  pecul- 
iar calling,  as  the  Messiah,  with  His  unique  work  of 
bearing  human  sin,  precluded  Him  from  that  sphere 
of  human  action.  But  He  did  touch  plainly  again  and 
again  the  great  principles  of  citizenship  in  His  teach- 
ing. He  taught  the  rendering  of  Caesar's  unto  Caesar, 
as  well  as  the  rendering  of  God's  unto  God.  His  ar- 
gument to  Peter  regarding  the  didrachmon  is  a  per- 
manent testimony  to  the  duty  of  obedience  even  to  an 
unrighteous  exaction.  Assuredly,  our  Lord's  life  can 
not  support  the  withdrawal  of  Christians  from  contact 
with  an  interest  in  the  world's  history  making  around 
them. 

But  the  other  extreme  of  identification  with  the 
world  on  the  part  of  the  Church  is  equally  repugnant 
to  a  true  Christian  spirit.  How  is  the  Church  to  be 
the  agent  of  converting  the  world,  if  it  keep  its  piety 
for  its  private  edification  and  presents  a  worldly  front 
toward  the  world  ?  How  is  the  power  of  the  Gospel 
in  conversion  to  be  illustrated,  if  the  converted  and 
unconverted  are  to  present  the  same  appearance? 
And,  we  may  add,  what  sort  of  piety  will  the  Church 
have  that  obliterates  the  distinction  between  its  mem- 
bers and  the  world?  Surely,  as  we  have  before  said, 
we  must  find  some  practical  solution  of  the  problem 


ISO 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


between  these  two  extremes.  When  we  see  from  the 
Word  of  God  that  the  unbeHeving  husband  and  the 
believing  wife  must  dwell  together,  we  have  light  at 
once  upon  the  subject.  We  see  that  there  are  walks 
in  life  where  Christian  duty  forbids  a  separation  of 
personal  and  intricate  relations  where  the  Spirit  of 
God  has  made  a  separation  in  spiritual  experience. 
To  be  sure,  this  is  an  extreme  case,  but  an  extreme 
case  best  exhibits  a  principle.  We  argue  from  such 
a  case,  not  that  the  selection  of  worldly  intimacies  is 
to  be  willfully  made,  but  that  they  are  not  in  them- 
selves sinful,  that  circumstances  may  make  them  nec- 
essary. Still  again,  and  on  the  other  side,  the  earnest 
and  eloquent  appeal  of  the  Apostle  to  the  same  Co- 
rinthians to  whom  he  laid  down  the  rule  about  the 
unbeHeving  and  believing  husband  and  wife  (2  Cor. 
vi.  14-18),  that  they  should  not  become  unequally 
yoked  together  with  unbelievers  (yu?;  yiveaOs  trspo- 
8,vyovvTEg  anloroig),  shows  us  the  danger  of  any  close 
alliance  with  unconverted  men  willfully  assumed. 
The  question  seems  to  resolve  itself  into  this :  Can  I 
join  the  outside  world  in  measures  of  general  good 
without  putting  myself  in  the  unequal  yoke?  If  I 
can,  then  all  the  claims  of  duty  as  a  citizen  and  mem- 
ber of  the  community,  as  well  as  those  of  a  Christian 
seeking  the  welfare  of  those  around  me,  are  upon  me 
to  join  the  outside  world  in  such  measures.  But 
surely  the  yoke  is  not  formed  by  alliance  in  doing 


THE  PREACHER  AND  THE  WORLD. 


151 


good ;  it  is  formed  by  the  alliance  that  is  uncondi- 
tional. Hence  we  conclude  that  the  Church  or  the 
Christian  (for  the  argument  is  the  same)  may  and 
ought  to  combine  with  the  world,  with  the  distinct 
understanding  that  the  alliance  is  only  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  public  weal,  and  has  no  binding  force 
where  the  world's  business  or  pleasures  are  concerned. 
Wherever,  in  special  cases,  by  reason  of  the  presence 
of  notoriously  evil  men,  the  alliance  might  be  misin- 
terpreted, it  should  be  abandoned.  No  Christian  is 
to  soil  his  garments  even  to  do  a  good  deed.  If  we 
have  laid  down  the  true  principle,  we  are  prepared  to 
apply  it  to  the  various  practical  cases  that  constantly 
present  themselves  for  decision. 

I.  The  first  field  that  invites  our  attention  is  that 
of  national  or  local  politics.  There  is  so  much  of  the 
slime  and  ooze  of  society  in  the  elementary  move- 
ments of  political  parties,  that  not  only  Christian 
graces,  but  even  refined  tastes  shrink  from  participa- 
tion in  them.  And  yet  the  primary  meetings  are  the 
roots  of  local,  sectional,  and  national  administration. 
There  the  candidates  are  nominated  and  there  virtual 
principles  are  established  or  at  least  colored.  In  a 
'  country  where  the  people  govern,  this  must  necessarir 
ly  be  so.  In  such  a  country,  moreover,  the  responsi- 
bility of  government  is  distributed  among  all,  and  no 
one  has  a  right  to  shirk  it.  It  is  one  of  the  prices  we 
have  to  pay  for  a  free  country,  that  all  classes  and 


I  5  2  THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

kinds  of  men  must  meet  together  in  order  to  deter- 
,  mine  both  opinions  and  men.  Can  the  Church  of 
Christ  be  absolved  from  this  duty  ?  Can  the  Chris- 
tian man  be  relieved  of  this  burden  ?  For  we  hold 
that  what  the  Christian  man  must  do  in  a  case  of  citi- 
zenship, a  Christian  minister  must  do.  In  things  indif- 
ferent we  may  make  a  distinction  between  the  preacher 
and  the  private  Christian,  and  many  actions  appropri- 
ate to  the  layman  might,  from  the  action  of  the  law 
of  association,  be  reprehensible  in  the  preacher.  But 
where  a  duty  to  the  commonwealth  is  involved,  and 
where,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  the  duty  can 
not  be  performed  by  a  portion  of  the  community  (as 
can  the  matter  of  military  service,  for  example),  but 
must  be  performed  by  all,  the  excepting  of  the 
preacher  can  not  hold.  His  vote  is  a  power  which  he 
has  no  right  to  forego,  because  on  it  depends  the  wel- 
fare of  others.  And  so  his  presence  and  voice  at  the 
primary  meeting  must  be  regarded  as  a  duty  of  citi- 
zenship. It  is  not  a  social  meeting  which  might  be 
made  a  criterion  of  his  tastes  and  tendencies,  but  a 
business  meeting  of  the  most  important  sort,  and  to 
be  classed  with  the  meeting  at  the  polls.  In  such  a 
meeting  a  Christian  minister  can  always  preserve  his 
dignity,  and  his  presence  will  do  much  to  repress  the 
elements  of  disorder.  If  Christian  ministers  of  both 
parties  attended  the  primary  meetings,  we  should  have 
fewer  unprincipled  men  put  into  ofifice,  and  this  is  a 


THE  PREACHER  AND  THE   WORLD. 


153 


reform  that  the  country  needs.  Christian  men  may- 
be on  either  side  of  our  national  politics  and  maintain 
their  integrity.  Both  parties  in  the  platforms  they 
construct  seek  the  good  of  the  country  as  they  un- 
derstand it,  and  hence  any  loud  advocacy  of  either 
party  by  a  Christian  preacher  I  should  take  to  be  an 
error,  compromising  his  usefulness  as  a  teacher  of  re- 
ligion. He  should  be  retired  and  moderate  on  those 
public  matters  on  which  good  men  differ,  and  by 
meddling  with  which  he  would  unnecessarily  estrange 
many  whom  he  ought  to  attract.  Only  when  a 
great  Christian  principle  is  attacked  ought  he  to 
come  forward  into  prominence,  and  advocate  the 
truth  in  the  political  field.  But  when  we  leave  the 
distinctive  politics  of  party  and  come  down  to  the 
politics  of  any  one  party,  then  clearly  it  becomes  his 
duty  in  conjunction  with  his  fellow-citizens  to  see  to 
it  (so  far  as  he  has  power)  that  men  of  truth  and  hon- 
esty are  nominated  to  ofifices  of  government.  That 
this  should  be  done  without  laying  undue  stress  on 
the  political  side  of  his  life  to  the  detriment  of  his 
spiritual  influence  is,  of  course,  clear.  A  preacher  can 
go  to  the  primary  meeting  and  can  speak  his  mind 
freely,  and  yet  not  be  what  is  known  as  a  ward  poli- 
tician. He  has  not  put  on  the  unequal  yoke  by  a 
faithful  endeavor  at  the  fountain-head  of  influence  to 
put  righteous  men  into  ofifice. 

Whether  the  preacher  should  hold  ofKice  is  quite  a 
7* 


154  THE  CHRISTIAN  TREACHER. 

different  question,  involving  many  new  considerations. 
To  hold  office  is  to  abandon  the  active  work  of  the 
ministry,  and  the  cases  must  be  very  rare  where  this 
could  be  warranted  in  foro  conscieiitice.     There  may 
be  trying  times  in  the   history  of  the  State  when 
great  exceptional  means  must  be  taken,  and  a  With- 
erspoon  may  find  it  to  be  his  duty  to  leave  the  pulpit 
and  to  enter  the  hall  of  Congress ;  but  the  preacher's 
power  for  God  and  the  truth  is  eminently  a  power 
of  the  pulpit  and  not  of  the  political  rostra.     We  can 
readily  conceive  of  a  crisis  where  the  preacher  will 
even  rightfully  shoulder  his  musket  and  hurry  to  the 
front,  but  it  must  be  a  crisis  indeed,  which  will  ac- 
count to  every  one  for  the  exceptional  case.     A  Chris- 
tian preacher  exerting  his  influence  for  the  nomination 
of  righteous  men  to  office  is  one  thing,  and  a  Chris- 
tian preacher  himself  running  for  office  is  quite  an- 
other.    The  latter  suggests  ambition  in  its  original 
sense,  a  style  of  action  wholly  incompatible  with  the 
independent  and  dignified  position  of  Christ's  minis- 
ter.     The  candidate  for  office  becomes  the  butt  of 
every  penny-a-liner  of  the  opposite  side,  and  every- 
thing that  can  be  raked  up  of  inconsistency  in  his 
former  life  is  exaggerated  and  much  altogether  in- 
vented, and  the  whole  thrown  at  him  by  ten  thousand 
idle  and  wanton  hands.     Now,  if  a  minister  is  forced 
into  an  unpleasant  position,  let  him  bear  it  meekly 
and  with  a  martyr's  spirit,  but  do  not  let  a  minister 


THE  PREACHER  AND  THE   WORLD. 


155 


rush  voluntarily  into  the  pillory  and  court  the  addled 
eggs.  It  will  seriously  interfere  with  his  power  as  a 
Gospel  preacher.  There  are  enough  good  men  out  of 
the  ministry  to  take  office  with  its  honors  and  its 
burdens,  and  no  necessity  in  ordinary  times  can  be 
pleaded  by  the  preacher  for  offering  himself  to  the 
suffrages  of  the  people  for  political  advancement. 
The  public  sentiment  is  perfectly  correct  on  this 
point,  and  shoulders  are  shrugged  by  men  generally 
when  a  minister  becomes  a  candidate  for  office.  Let 
the  minister  be  satisfied  with  supporting  good  men 
for  public  situations  in  the  Government,  while  he 
himself  keeps  out  of  the  pancraiion  of  candidacy.  It 
will  show  no  want  of  concern  for  the  welfare  of  the 
State,  and  for  the  triumphs  of  virtuous  and  sound 
principles,  for  the  minister  to  keep  in  the  background 
and  use  his  influence  without  the  suspicion  of  selfish 
interest.  That  a  minister  has  not  the  capacity  to 
manage  public  affairs  is  a  common  allegation  which 
has  no  more  foundation  than  the  other  frequent  as- 
sertion that  a  minister  can  not  manage  a  matter  of 
finance.  If  habits  of  careful  thought  and  a  training 
in  morality  unfit  a  man  for  public  affairs  and  financial 
management,  then  we  will  grant  that  a  minister 
should  be  kept  out  of  public  office  and  such  situations 
as  involve  financial  cares  from  incapacity.  No  man 
understands  human  nature  better  than  a  minister, 
and  no  man  is  so  called  upon  to  exercise  patience. 


156  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

forbearance,  impartiality,  and  other  governmental 
virtues  as  he  who  reigns  over  a  parish,  and  is  ever  ap- 
pealed to  as  a  guide.  No  man,  moreover,  so  habitually 
studies  and  practices  the  expedients  of  economy  and 
is  more  exact  in  the  matter  of  income  and  outlay. 
The  judgment  against  the  administrative  or  financial 
ability  of  ministers  is  like  that  against  their  home 
discipline  in  the  proverb  about  "  ministers'  sons,"  the 
result  of  noticing  with  particular  attention  the  failures 
of  conspicuous  men.  Ministers  are  conspicuous  be- 
fore the  community.  They  are  public  men,  seen  and 
known  of  all.  They  are,  moreover,  counted  a  conse- 
crated and  holy  class.  Therefore,  when  any  one  of 
such  a  class  comes  short  in  any  positive  way,  the  en- 
tire community  remark  it  and  rush  to  hasty  general- 
izations. It  is  not,  then,  on  any  ground  of  incapacity, 
any  more  than  on  the  ground  of  non-interest  in  the 
State's  welfare,  that  we  should  debar  preachers  from 
public  office,  but  only  on  account  of  the  heavenly 
expediences  of  the  holy  calling. 

2.  Another  field  of  effort  which  lies  open  to  the 
large-hearted  citizen  is  that  of  UToral  Reform,  and 
the  preacher's  relation  to  this  becomes  an  interesting 
question. 

That  all  true  moral  reform  should  meet  the  sympa- 
thy and  co-operation  to  some  extent  of  all  Christian 
preachers  need  not  be  argued.  The  question  is,  what 
is  that  extent  ?     How  far  should  preachers  identify 


THE  PREACHER  AND  THE   WORLD.  157 

themselves  with  special  forms  of  moral  enginery 
for  the  improvement  and  elevation  of  mankind  ?  It 
would  be  a  hasty  response,  that  there  can  be  no  limit, 
that  wherever  good  is  sought,  there  the  preacher 
should  be.  For  there  are  other  considerations  to  be 
entertained  besides  that  of  beneficent  and  philan- 
thropic objects.  Evil  methods,  improper  associates, 
and  disproportion  of  energy  may  impose  very  decided 
limitations  on  a  wise  and  true  minister.  To  rush  into 
any  proposed  movement  of  benevolence  with  a  toss- 
ing up  of  the  hat  and  a  reproach  for  those  who  de- 
cline to  join,  is  a  cheap  way  of  gaining  a  sanctified 
fame  among  certain  classes ;  but  those  who  seek  good, 
and  not  fame,  will  weigh  each  case,  and  make  no  for- 
ward movement  under  questionable  auspices.  In 
many  schemes  of  benevolence,  the  pernicious  princi- 
ple of  doing  evil  that  good  may  come,  is  practically 
accepted  as  a  true  philosophy.  Fairs  are  established, 
at  which  theatrical  exhibitions  and  theatrical  morals 
are  introduced,  and  young  maidens  educated  to  be 
brazen-faced  ;  balls  are  instituted,  at  which  fashionable 
display  and  lascivious  waltzing  form  the  chief  attrac- 
tion ;  lotteries  are  formed,  and  the  young  are  se- 
duced into  gambling,  and  all  this  for  the  building  of 
an  orphan  asylum,  or  the  support  of  the  worthy  poor! 
Are  ministers  to  be  caught  by  this  bait  of  Satan  ? 
Are  they  to  be  shamed  into  supporting  these  worldly 
iniquities  by  the  ready  reproach,  "You  have  no  lib- 


1 5  8  THE  CHRISTIAN  PRE  A  CHER. 

eral  sympathy  for  the  distressed ;  your  narrow-mind- 
edness makes  you  selfish,"  when  the  liberality  of 
these  benevolent  ball-goers  is  but  the  activity  of  their 
carnal  appetites  under  a  new  name?  Alas!  for  the 
liberality  of  those  who  have  to  be  amused  in  their 
lower  natures  before  they  can  be  induced  to  give ! 
Charity,  given  through  a  charity  ball,  is  in  one  sense 
disinterested  benevolence ;  it  is  benevolence  that  has 
not  the  slightest  interest  in  its  objects. 

The  Christian  minister  should  uncompromisingly 
set  his  face  against  all  this  worldly  system  of  doing 
good,  which  has  so  often  made  its  inroads  into  the 
Church  of  Christ  to  pollute  its  sanctity  and  weaken 
its  true  life.  The  support  of  the  Church  and  the 
promotion  of  schemes  to  ameliorate  the  condition 
of  man  should  never  be  soiled  with  methods  of 
doubtful  virtue.  The  stain  will  run  all  through  to  the 
very  end  of  the  action.  The  cases  referred  to  as  in- 
stances involve  moral  obliquity.  There  are  other 
classes  of  false  method  which  are  evil  by  reason  of 
their  associations.  Anything  that  mixes  the  commer- 
cial business  of  men  with  the  guidance  of  the  Church 
shocks  the  godly  sensibility.  "  Running  churches  "  (as 
it  is  significantly  called)  by  a  sort  of  stock  company 
plan,  working  up  the  stock  by  commercial  methods, 
getting  the  preacher  who  will  draiv  the  multitude  of 
itching  ears,  advertising  in  the  newspapers  as  they  do 
the  last  new  sensation  at  the  theater ;  these  are  in- 


THE  PREACHER  AND  THE   WORLD. 


159 


stances  where  the  sacred  law  of  association  is  vio- 
lated, and  religion  is  degraded.  Nor  is  it  only  the 
Church,  but  every  style  of  moral  reform  inaugurated 
by  Christian  men  on  Christian  principles,  that  must 
adhere  to  the  requirements  of  this  sacred  law.  No 
moral  reform  can  rest  on  a  basis  of  public  amusement 
or  of  pecuniary  gain.  These  are  false  foundations 
that  will  sink  in  the  end  and  bring  ruin  on  the  reform. 
The  minister  can  not  afford  to  link  his  name  and  po- 
sition with  such  short-lived  and  unseemly  schemes. 
Nor  can  he  embark  in  works  of  public  reformation  in 
fellowship  with  those  who  by  their  profession  or  their 
lives  despise  the  truth  of  God.  It  is  a  temptation  too 
readily  yielded  to,  when  we  find  prominent  men  who 
maybe  of  immoral  lives  or  of  pronounced  infidel  senti- 
ments, earnestly  advocating  a  cause  of  reform,  to  join 
with  them  in  societies  and  on  the  platform  in  the 
common  interest.  The  Christian  minister  always 
compromises  his  sacred  character  by  such  an  alliance. 
We  should  remember  that  our  Lord,  when  demons 
were  ready  to  vouchsafe  their  testimony  in  His  be- 
half, declined  their  assistance  and  forbade  their  co- 
operation. The  principle  should  be  maintained  by  us. 
Communion  with  men  of  false  lives  or  ungodly 
teachings  in  a  reform  movement  will  not  only  bring 
the  Christian  preacher  to  their  level  in  the  eyes  of  the 
community,  but  also  undermine  his  own  steadfastness 
and  lead  him  from  the  Gospel  plane  of  benevolence 


1 60  THE  CHRIST  I  A  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

to  a  vague  and  unchristian  philanthropy.  There  may- 
be a  style  of  consent  and  official  co-operation  on  the 
part  of  all  sorts  of  men  which  we  must  gain  in  all 
works  of  public  reform ;  but  that  is  a  different  thing 
from  the  close  and  intimate  relations  of  copartner- 
ship to  which  we  are  now  referring. 

In  seeking  the  elevation  of  the  community,  we  will 
be  obliged  to  persuade  public  officers,  and  these  may 
be  men  of  very  false  lives,  but  in  so  doing  we  do  not 
appear  before  the  world  as  in  any  close  association 
with  these ;  that  will  destroy  or  secularize  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Christian  ministry.  The  work  is  to  be 
wrought  on  the  world  about  us,  and  we  must  there- 
fore come  into  contact  with  it.  The  preacher  has  it 
as  a  duty  to  subserve  the  public  welfare.  He  has  no 
right  to  see  crime  and  the  agencies  of  crime  on  every 
side,  and  content  himself  with  the  direct  ministry  of 
the  Church.  His  office  is  in  one  sense  for  all  the 
world.  He  must  not  fear  to  denounce  public  evils, 
and  to  take  strong  and  decided  measures  for  their 
suppression.  The  more  influence  he  has,  the  greater 
is  his  responsibility  in  this  regard.  The  elements  of 
evil  in  a  community  will  gladly  denounce  the  inter- 
ference of  the  preacher  in  public  affairs,  and  seek  to 
remand  him  to  the  cloister,  for  they  would  be  rid  of 
his  power  lifted  up  against  them,  but  no  opposition 
do  they  so  sincerely  respect  and  inwardly  approve  as 
that  of  a  man  of  God,  whom  they  believe  to  be  above 


THE  PRE  A  CHER  AND   THE    WORLD.  igi 

the  selfish  motives  of  the  mass  of  men.  It  is  because 
of  the  real  moral  power  of  the  preacher  in  the  cause 
of  public  order,  that  the  promoters  of  disorder  would 
cry  "  shame  "  on  him  when  he  puts  his  hand  on  the 
lever  of  a  reform  engine.  To  the  superficial  observer 
only  will  such  public -spirited  conduct  have  the  ap- 
pearance of  worldly  scheming.  The  two  are  as  wide 
apart  as  the  poles.  One  is  all  selfishness,  the  other 
has  not  a  grain  of  selfishness  in  it.  The  one  goes  out 
to  float  with  the  popular  current,  the  other  goes  out 
to  breast  that  current  and  to  counteract  its  force.  In 
a  land  like  ours,  where  each  citizen  is  a  responsible 
portion  of  the  government,  every  Christian  minister 
should  be  a  leader  of  his  people  in  every  style  of  true 
reform  in  the  State.  If  all  Christians,  with  their  min- 
isters at  their  head,  would  forget  their  political  party 
affinities  and  move  in  solid  phalanx  upon  the  glaring 
abominations  that  defy  both  decency  and  law  among 
us,  these  evils  that  now  curse  and  threaten  the  very 
life  of  the  State  would  instantly  succumb,  as  the 
grass  before  the  prairie  fire.  It  is  because  ministers 
are  remiss  and  excuse  themselves  from  great  public 
undertakings  that  these  enormities  are  allowed  to 
flourish.  No  !  let  it  be  clearly  understood  by  all  that 
a  preacher,  though  never  to  be  a  worldly  man,  is  al- 
ways to  be  a  public  man,  and  let  no  coward  enter  the 
ministerial  ranks.  The  notion  that  a  minister  is  a 
sort  of  male  woman  has  grown  out  of  the  remissness 


1 62  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

of  ministers  in  this  very  matter  we  are  considering. 
We  should  disabuse  the  people  of  this  fallacy  and 
show  them  that  we  abstain  from  the  world's  sins,  but 
not  from  its  management ;  that  we  are  ready  to  go  to 
the  front  and  engage  in  the  thickest  of  the  fight  in 
order  to  destroy  the  haunts  of  vice,  and  secure  the 
quiet  Sunday  of  our  forefathers. 

3.  A  third  field  of  activity  that  opens  before  the 
preacher  is  that  of  Literature  and  Art.  There  can  be 
no  question  that  aesthetic  culture  has  been  a  powerful 
agent  in  modern  civilization,  and  yet  the  history  of 
Athens  shows  us  clearly  that  the  Christian  idea  is  not 
a  necessity  in  jesthetic  culture.  Architecture,  stat- 
uary, painting,  poetry,  oratory,  and  essay -writing 
reached  their  culmination  when  Christianity  was  un- 
known. Democrates,  Pheidias,  Zeuxis,  Sophocles, 
Demosthenes,  and  Plato  have  had  in  modern  days 
their  imitators,  but  not  their  equals ;  and  yet  there  is 
no  doubt  that  Athens  in  her  proudest  period  of  cult- 
ure, from  Pericles  to  Plato,  was  a  grossly  immoral 
State,  and  that  her  scholarly  refinement  was  no  pro- 
tection against  the  flow  of  vice.  The  deepest  degra- 
dation was  not  only  synchronous  with  the  most  ex- 
quisite achievements  of  art,  but  actually  appertained 
to  the  artists  themselves,  just  as  we  see  the  same 
combination  of  the  beautiful  and  the  debasing  in  the 
Italian  masters  of  modern  art.  Our  inference  from 
this  is,  that  art  in  itself  and  literature  in  itself  have  no 


THE  PREACHER  AND   THE   WORLD.  163 

power  to  produce  a  Christian  civilization ;  and  here 
we  must  guard  against  a  misconception.  Art  may- 
busy  itself  with  themes  drawn  from  Scripture  story, 
and  yet  have  nothing  Christian  in  it ;  aesthetic  effect 
being  the  only  aim  in  the  pencil  and  brush.  A  Raphael 
may  have  his  mistress  sit  for  a  portrait  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  with  precisely  the  same  object  in  view  with 
which  on  the  next  day  he  delineates  a  Venus,  namely, 
to  make  a  thing  of  beauty.  Because  one  is  called  the 
Virgin  Mary,  it  has  no  claim  to  be  called  Christian. 
Christian  art  or  Christian  literature  must  differ  from 
the  Greek  or  Italian.  It  must  have  a  higher  aim  than 
merely  beauty.  To  be  a  fine-art,  beauty  must  be  its 
goal ;  but  it  must  be  a  beauty  all  saturated  with  spir- 
itual truth.  It  must  be  a  beauty  that  shines  forth 
from  the  truth,  as  the  radiance  from  the  sun.  It 
must  be  a  beauty  that  touches  the  aesthetic  sense 
while  its  underlying  truth  is  awakening  and  sanctify- 
ing the  sentiments  and  affections  of  the  soul.  Such 
is  the  beauty  of  one  of  our  Lord's  parables.  Such  is 
the  beauty  of  Paul's  prose  ode  to  divine  love.  And 
such  beauty  may  be  carved  out  of  the  marble  or  laid 
in  line  and  color  upon  the  canvas.  The  question 
how  far  art  can  be  the  handmaid  of  religion  is  really 
the  question  for  the  Christian  minister  to  consider. 
Outside  of  religion  there  may  be  an  innocent  amuse- 
ment in  art,  but  surely  a  Christian  preacher  will  no 
more  make  it  his  set  business  to  promote  mere  amuse- 


1 64  THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

ment  in  art  (hoAvever  much  he  may  approve  of  it) 
than  he  will  make  it  his  business  to  promote  base- 
ball and  croquet.  He  knows  that  art  by  itself  has 
nothing  Christianizing  in  it.  It  may  help  refine  man- 
ner, but  it  does  not  refine  the  heart.  A  Parrhasius 
will  delight  in  his  victim's  tortures,  while  he  treats  his 
subject  in  the  most  aesthetic  manner.  There  is  a  very 
common  refinement  in  modern  as  well  as  ancient  civ- 
ilization, that  bows  gracefully  and  extends  the  right 
hand  in  courtesy,  while  the  left  hand  clutches  a  sti- 
letto. A  Christian  minister,  therefore,  wishes  some- 
thing more  than  mere  art  to  which  to  give  his  ear- 
nest and  positive  support.  It  must  be  an  art  that 
actually  teaches  the  soul  the  great  principles  of  the 
doctrine  of  Christ.  We  are  not  talking  now  of  what 
a  Christian  should  do,  but  what  a  Christian  preacher 
should  do,  one  who  stands  out  from  among  his  fellows 
as  a  watchman  on  the  walls  of  God's  Zion.  How  far 
is  such  a  one  warranted  in  engaging  in  works  of  art 
and  literature? 

We  have  rarely  had  cases  brought  before  our 
minds  of  ministers  who  were  skillful  with  the  chisel 
or  the  brush,  and  yet  we  may  imagine  such  who  would 
act  in  perfect  consonance  with  their  sacred  character 
if  they  should  convey  great  Gospel  truths  to  the  eye 
as  well  as  to  the  ear,  while  for  these  to  become  pro- 
fessional sculptors  or  painters  would  be  to  abandon 
their  peculiar  office  as  preachers  of  the  Word.     If  we 


THE  PREACHER  AND  THE   WORLD.  165 

apply  these  principles  to  literature,  we  should  expect 
to  see  the  pen  of  the  preacher  ever  ready  to  put 
forth  any  poem  or  essay  that  would  illustrate  Chris- 
tian faith,  and  the  essay  might  take  any  form,  whether 
that  of  the  didactic  discussion,  the  dramatic  composi- 
tion, or  the  novel.  The  limits  to  be  observed  would 
be  twofold  :  first,  that  the  writing  be  a  thing  of  beauty, 
or  else  it  is  not  a  piece  of  literature  (in  the  sense  we 
here  use  the  word) ;  and,  secondly,  that  it  leaves  not 
the  plane  of  distinctively  Christian  ethics,  or  else  the 
preacher's  function  is  compromised.  If  Art  be  faith- 
fully used  as  the  handmaid  of  religion,  it  can  not  be 
amiss  in  the  use  of  the  preacher,  whether  the  art  be 
exhibited  by  manual  means  or  by  the  use  of  the 
tongue ;  but  we  are  not  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that 
in  the  name  of  Art  much  folly  has  been  wrought  in 
Israel,  and  Art  itself  set  up  as  a  divinity  to  be  wor- 
shiped in  the  place  of  Christ.  Art  in  alliance  with 
true  religion  is  a  useful  element  of  a  true  and  perma- 
nent civilization ;  but  Art  in  alliance  with  the  de- 
praved passions  of  man  is  a  plausible  and  wily  fiend 
corrupting  society  with  its  soft,  voluptuous  touch. 

We  have  not  counted  the  Press  in  our  discussion  of 
literature,  because  the  Press  can  not  be  reckoned  as 
belonging  to  the  fine-arts.  Its  object  is  not  the  pres- 
entation of  beauty,  but  of  facts  and  comments  upon 
facts.  The  Church  has  largely  used  the  Press  as  its 
agent,  and  a  most  successful  agent  in  propagating  the 


1 66  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

truths  of  the  Gospel.  The  milHons  of  Bibles  in  hun- 
dreds of  languages  that  have  been  distributed  through 
the  earth  testify  to  the  value  of  this  agency,  and  make 
us  believe  that  the  invention  of  printing  was  like  the 
Alexandrian  universality  of  the  Greek  language,  one 
of  the  great  providential  arrangements  in  history  for 
the  spread  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  And  as  the  Bible 
has  used  this  medium  whereby  to  visit  the  whole 
world,  so  a  religious  literature  (using  the  word  in  the 
broader  sense)  has  been  scattered  by  the  same  means 
to  the  furtherance  of  true  religion.  Surely,  so  far,  we 
find  nothing  wherein  the  Christian  preacher  may  not 
appropriately  take  part.  The  more  he  can  multiply 
books  of  wholesome  religious  truth,  the  better  for 
the  world  that  he  is  seeking  to  enlighten  and  save. 
But  when  we  come  from  books  to  newspapers,  and 
survey  that  distinctive  field  of  current  literature, 
which  differentiates  our  age  from  all  others,  the  prob- 
lem is  more  mixed  and  the  solution  not  so  easy. 

Very  many  preachers  are  newspaper  editors,  some- 
times of  dailies,  but  generally  of  weekly  prints.  As 
the  daily  newspaper  must  always  be  chiefly  a  collect- 
or of  general  news,  I  can  not  see  how  a  Christian 
preacher  can  willingly  and  of  choice  make  the  editing 
of  such  a  journal  his  main  work,  or  his  work  at  all, 
for  a  man  can  not  edit  a  daily  newspaper  ev  Trap'pycp. 
If  his  tent-making  should  take  this  form,  he  could 
not  criticise ;  but  if  the  way  were  open  for  him  to 


THE  PREACHER  AND   THE    WORLD.  167 

make  full  proof  of  his  ministry,  it  would  be  a  per- 
verse, Jonali-like  service  to  enter  upon  the  duties  of 
the  daily  editor,  in  which  his  pastoral  and  evangelis- 
tic character  would  be,  perforce,  almost  wholly 
eclipsed.  But  many  of  our  weekly  papers  are  called 
religious  papers,  and  in  their  editorial  chairs  we  gen- 
erally find  preachers  sitting.  They  are  often  men  of 
the  highest  grade  of  intellectual  ability  and  ecclesias- 
tical faithfulness,  and  it  can  not  be  denied  that  their 
papers,  conducted  with  great  good  judgment,  and  exhib- 
iting sound  doctine,  carry  the  truth  to  many  homes, 
and  carry  it  in  a  manner  that  is  peculiarly  acceptable 
to  many.  Some  of  these  editors  devote  their  whole 
time  to  their  weekly  publication,  while  others  con- 
tinue their  active  functions  as  pastors,  having  asso- 
ciate or  managing  editors  to  attend  to  the  business 
details  of  the  office. 

This  editing  has  the  elements  of  the  work  of  relig- 
ious tract  making  and  distribution,  and  so  far  is  in 
the  direct  line  of  a  preacher's  functions.  Many 
homes  may  find  the  religious  thought  conveyed  to 
them  through  their  religious  newspaper  a  leaven  of 
godliness,  coming  as  it  does  in  the  attractive  and 
readily-handled  form  of  a  newspaper,  and  so  far  more 
apt  to  be  used,  especially  by  the  young,  to  whom  a 
religious  book  is  often  a  bugbear. 

Now,  if  Christian  preachers  can  furnish  such  a  me- 
dium of   evangelization  and  spiritual  quickening  to 


1 68  THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

the  community,  they  are  certainly  engaged  in  a  work 
altogether  consistent  with  their  holy  calling,  and  the 
Christian  minister  who  happens  to  be  an  editor, 
should  not  be  reproached. 

The  only  exceptions  that  can  be  taken  seem  to  re- 
late to  special  cases,  and  not  to  the  general  fact.  It 
can  hardly  be  right  for  the  Christian  preacher  to 
abandon  all  personal  work  for  the  use  of  his  pen,  nor 
should  he  allow  in  his  paper  anything  that  would 
compromise  his  Christian  character,  even  under  the 
plea  that  the  "  other  editor  "  inserted  that  particular 
article.  The  public  do  not  know  the  details  of  the 
editorial  sanctum,  and  attribute  every  article  in  the 
religious  newspaper  to  its  well-known  ministerial 
editor,  and  they  also  hold  him  responsible  for  the 
character  of  every  advertisement  that  appears  in  his 
sheet. 

Now,  this  conduct  of  the  public  must  be  respected 
for  Christ's  sake,  and  the  ministerial  editor  must  not 
assume  his  position  unless  he  is  ready  to  control  and 
supervise  all  parts  of  his  weekly  publication.  Nor 
should  the  ministerial  editor  appear  to  the  world  as  a 
seeker  after  riches,  as  running  his  paper  not  to  evan- 
gelize and  sanctify  the  world,  but  to  fill  his  pockets. 
Such  an  object  soon  leads  to  worldly  compromises 
and  the  insertion  of  dishonest  and  ad  captandiini  arti- 
cles, framed  to  attract  subscribers  to  the  prejudice  of 
godly  instruction.     If  anything  in  a  religious  news- 


THE  PREACHER  AND   THE   ]VORI.D. 


169 


paper  with  a  preacher  as  its  editor  can  be  associated 
with  that  preacher's  name  to  his  detriment,  then  this 
thing  is  unfit  to  insert,  and  its  insertion,  whether  by 
managing  editor  or  clerk,  or  any  one  else,  is  an  injury 
to  the  Church  of  Christ.  I  believe  that  there  is  much 
to  correct  in  this  department  of  clerical  activity,  and 
that  preachers  should  be  as  watchful  over  their  breth- 
ren in  the  editorial  chair  as  they  are  over  those  in  the 
pulpit. 

The  ministerial  editor  of  a  religious  journal  may  be 
an  unspeakable  help  to  the  Church,  and  a  potent 
agent  in  ev^angelization,  or  he  may  very  readily  be- 
come a  harmful  point  of  conjunction  between  the 
Church  and  the  world. 


THE    PREACHER'S    RELATION    TO 
HIS    WORK. 


LECTURE    VII. 

THE   PREACHER'S   RELATION  TO   HIS  WORK. 

If  I  have  been  correct  In  drawing  the  portrait  of  a 
Christian  preacher,  then  surely  no  one  should  attempt 
to  enter  upon  the  holy  office  without  a  true  consecra- 
tion of  heart.  It  is  an  office  that  was  not  instituted 
by  man,  nor  can  man  furnish  the  higher  qualifications 
for  its  duties  ;  but  the  Spirit  of  God  must  prepare  the 
heart  and  form  the  life  for  him  who  is  to  be  a  ruler  in 
the  house  of  God.  There  is  a  popular  theory  that 
the  Church  of  Christ  is  a  voluntary  association,  like  a 
lyceum  or  benevolent  society,  and  that  anybody  with 
a  fair  amount  of  tact  can  manage  it ;  that  its  pulpit 
should  be  open  to  any  one  who  can  talk  rhetorically ; 
that  its  ordinances  are  formalities  of  ornament  or  de- 
cency ;  that  its  platform  should  admit  every  well- 
disposed  person,  and  that  it  should  look  to  the  cult- 
ured world  generally  for  its  support.  We  have  not  so 
learned  Christ.  We  believe  the  Church  to  be  begot- 
ten of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  that  it  is  the  mystic  bride  of 
Christ ;  that  its  officers  arc  called  of  God ;  that  its  or- 
dinances have  both  a  divine  significance  and  a  divine 
power ;  that  its  members  are  cleansed  from  sin  by  the 
blood  of  the  Lamb  of  God,  and  that  Christ  is  ever 

(173) 


1 2^  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

present  with  His  Church  by  a  gracious  manifestation 
unknown  to  the  world.  Into  such  a  Church  worldly- 
minded  men  have  no  right  to  enter  as  members,  much 
less  as  ministers.  Yet  in  all  the  Church's  history  (ac- 
cording to  the  apostolic  prophecy,  Acts  xx.  29  ;  Col. 
ii.  8  ;  2  Tim.  iii.  1-9)  worldly-minded  men  have  rushed 
into  the  Church  and  defiled  the  temple  of  God  with 
their  worldly  wares.  Carnal  ambition,  a  love  of  power 
or  display,  has  entered  the  pulpit  and  degraded  it. 
Holy  things  have  been  made  common  to  the  delight 
of  Satan  and  to  the  grief  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  As 
the  result  of  this,  the  advance  of  Christ's  truth  has 
been  checked,  and  judgments  in  various  forms  have 
begun  at  the  house  of  God.  Rancor,  hate,  strife, 
persecution,  with  the  utter  removal  of  spiritual  can- 
dlesticks, have  marked  the  course  of  the  historic 
Church  as  the  reward  of  its  dalliance  with  the  world. 
No  thoughtful  Christian  can  review  this  history  with- 
out a  strong  desire  to  see  the  Church  separate  itself  to 
its  Saviour  and  Lord,  and  reap  the  blessed  fruits  of 
such  faithfulness.  Especially  does  it  become  the 
man  preparing  to  enter  upon  the  ministry  of  Christ's 
Church  to  regard  the  sacredness  and  solemnity  of  the 
step  he  is  about  to  take,  and  see  to  it  that  the  love  of 
Christ  is  his  prevailing,  constraining  motive  in  his  ac- 
tion. Trifling  here  is  an  insult  to  the  Majesty  of 
heaven,  and  a  contribution  toward  the  humiliation 
of  the  Church.     No  one  should  enter  the  Theological 


THE  PREACHER'S  RELATION  TO  HIS  WORK.   175 

Seminary  as  he  would  a  School  of  Art  or  Engineering, 
for  the  Lord's  ministry  is  on  a  very  different  plane 
from  that  of  a  human  technic.  There  should  be  a 
perceptible  atmosphere  of  Christian  brotherhood,  and 
the  spirit  of  the  world  should  be  banished,  when  men 
congregate  to  study  God's  revealed  truth  and  enroll 
themselves  as  the  Lord's  ministers.  The  seminary 
should  not  chill  the  godly  heart,  but  increase  its 
warmth  and  strengthen  every  grace.  It  should  prove 
a  quickener  of  every  spiritual  faculty  and  not  simply 
address  itself  to  the  intellect  of  its  students.  The 
seminary  should,  as  the  vestibule  of  the  pulpit,  give 
the  holy  afiflatus  that  the  pulpit  should  ever  exhibit. 
It  is  lamentable  that  this  is  not  always  the  case,  and 
often  students  who  have  entered  the  seminary  with 
warm  and  zealous  affections,  have  left  it  with  a  pain- 
ful sense  of  spiritual  loss.  Sometimes  professors  are 
responsible  for  this  in  presenting  to  the  students  a 
hard,  perfunctory  front,  and  sometimes  students  are 
themselves  to  blame  in  not  using  diligently  the  means 
of  mutual  edification.  Perhaps  it  is  sometimes  the 
result  of  using  the  Bible  critically  and  not  devoutly, 
making  the  course  a  controversial  preparation  in  be- 
half of  the  Bible  rather  than  a  spiritual  bathing  ifi 
the  Bible.  Whatever  may  be  the  cause,  here  is  one 
place  to  stop  the  inroads  of  error  and  worldliness  into 
the  Church.  Let  a  true  consecration  of  heart  (so  far 
as  this  can  be  ascertained)  be  the  sine  qua  no?i  of  a 


1^6  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

seminary  course,  and  let  the  consecrated  heart  be 
encouraged  and  strengthened  in  its  seminary  expe- 
rience. Let  Christian  work  among  the  poor  and  sick 
and  destitute  be  united  with  the  teachings  of  the 
lecture-room,  and  the  ministerial  life  be  begun  in  all 
its  germs.  I  know  no  happier  picture  than  that  of 
a  band  of  young  men,  in  the  first  flush  of  their  experi- 
ence that  the  glory  of  Christ  is  all  that  is  worth  living 
for,  reaping  their  firstfruits  of  joy  from  their  new 
fields  and  talking  together  of  the  triumphs  of  grace 
which  they  have  witnessed.  This  should  be  the  typic 
seminary  picture. 

If  this  be  the  seminaiy  life,  then,  when  the  novitiate 
quits  the  course  of  probation,  he  will  not  be  filled 
with  the  base  desire  for  lucrative  positions,  but  will 
simply  seek  to  find  a  spot  where  he  can  exercise  his 
gifts  for  Christ  and  salvation.  To  such  souls  places 
will  be  always  offered.  The  alternative  of  "  candidat- 
ing  "  is  not  only  disagreeable  to  the  candidate,  if  he 
have  the  proper  sense  of  his  office,  but  is  calculated 
to  degrade  the  office  in  the  eyes  of  the  Church  and 
of  the  world.  Let  me  here  quote  a  letter  written  by 
a  minister  in  response  to  an  invitation  to  preach  as  a 
candidate.  I  take  it  from  the  paper  called  the  Church 
and  People,  and  from  the  issue  of  October  i8th,  this 
year :  "  I  have  received  an  invitation  to  preach  a 
trial  in  Blank  church.  This  I  have  declined  to  do  on 
the  ground  -that  the  whole  system  of  trial-preaching 


THE  PREACHER'S  RELATION  TO  HIS  WORK,    lyj 

and  competition-praying  is  inconsistent  with  the  re- 
spect which  is  due  to  my  work  and  office.     I  could 
not  approach  Almighty  God  in  prayer  and  preach  the 
comfortable  words  of  Christ  while  oppressed  with  the 
feeling  that  I  was  running  a  race  with  twenty-one 
brother  clergymen  in  an  open  competition  for  a  large 
salary   and   an    attractive    house."     The    editor  (the 
Rev.  Mr.  Bromfield)  adds:    "Such  examples  point  to 
one  of  the  greatest  dangers  which  the  Church  has  to 
encounter  in  these  days,  the  degradation  of  ministers 
into  mere  oflfice-seekers.    Unless  a  strong  tide  of  spir- 
ituality and  public  sentiment  among  the  clerg}^  and 
churches  meet  and  counteract  this  danger,  the  cause 
of  Christ,  as  interpreted  by  the  conduct  of  professing 
Christians,  will  be  brought  into  contempt."     As  we 
have  remarked  in  another  lecture,  we  have  no  right 
to  associate  our  ministerial  office  with  money.     If  a 
church  or  board  invite  us  to  a  special  charge,  then 
the  money  question  is  one  that  is  legitimate,  not  be- 
cause we  are  ministers,  but  because  we  are  parties  to 
a  special  contract.     Without  this  engagement,  we  are 
to  support  ourselves  in  any  honorable,  secular  way, 
and  preach  the  Gospel  as  we  may  have  opportunity. 
If  we  take  whatever  opportunity  is  offered,  however 
small  be  the  support  (if  it  only  be  a  support),  and 
faithfully  work   in   the    field  thus   opened,   God   will 
take  care  of  our  future.     We  are  seeking  His  glory 

among  mjn,  and  not  money.     Our  missionary  heroes 
8* 


1^8  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

are  examples  to  us  in  this  regard.  They  Hve  on  the 
smallest  pittance  and  are  satisfied,  and  they  never 
look  forward  to  increase  of  emolument.  One  desire 
fills  their  souls,  and  that  is  to  make  Christ  known, 
and  they  disregard  all  else.  Hence  their  noble  lives 
and  heroic  achievements.  What  is  true  of  the  candi- 
date at  the  beginning  of  his  ministerial  life,  is  true  of 
every  preacher  already  stationed  in  a  charge.  A  rest- 
less desire  to  get  into  a  more  remunerative  charge  is 
wholly  unworthy  of  a  Gospel  preacher.  One  who 
leaves  a  charge  where  he  has  been  spiritually  pros- 
pered, and  where  he  can  rightfully  expect  indefinite 
expansion  of  successful  labor  for  Christ — one  who 
leaves  such  a  charge  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  get 
more  salary,  is  scarcely  the  one  to  expect  spiritual 
prosperity  in  his  new  field.  His  soul  is  too  low  to 
gather  the  lofty  fruits  of  grace.  It  is  a  sad  and  sig- 
nificant fact  that  the  moment  a  pulpit  is  vacant, 
it  is  besieged  by  fifty  or  a  hundred  of  Micah's  Le- 
vites. 

But  some  will  say  in  despair,  "  How  is  a  preacher 
to  better  his  pecuniary  condition?"  and  the  answer 
is  negatively,  "  certainly  by  no  means  that  will  degrade 
him  or  the  sacred  calling,"  and  positively,  "  by  waiting 
until  he  is  clearly  called  to  receive  a  more  remunera- 
tive charge."  But  the  answer  will  go  deeper  than 
this.  It  will  say,  "  Have  no  anxiety  about  money 
matters;  be  satisfied  with  your  support,  live  according 


THE  PREACHER'S  RELATION  TO  HIS  WORK,   i^q 

to  your  income,  and  seek  no  more  than  your  church 
can  afford  to  give  you." 

There  may  be  a  private  talk  with  deacon,  or  elder, 
or  trustee,  as  to  the  wisdom  of  an  increase  in  the  sal- 
ary, when  the  pastor  sees  that  the  finances  of  the 
church  can  bear  it,  and  that  his  own  honest  wants 
demand  it ;  but  that  quiet  matter  is  a  very  different 
thing  from  the  public  rush  after  places  furnishing 
larger  salaries.  The  latter  betrays  a  false  spirit  and 
does  incalculable  harm  to  the  Church.  The  preacher 
is  to  be  a  living  witness  against  the  world's  universal 
policy  of  self-seeking.  He  labors  for  others  and  not 
for  himself.  In  this  labor  he  will  put  up  with  incon- 
veniences, endure  hardness,  forego  rights,  and  shrink 
from  soiling  his  pure  garments.  Such  a  preacher  is 
always  taken  care  of.  He  does  not  trust  the  Lord  in 
vain.  But  the  ambitious,  restless  preacher,  ever 
grasping  at  fame  or  money,  is,  in  proportion  to  the 
development  of  this  false  desire,  destroying  his  own 
peace  as  well  as  his  usefulness  for  the  truth.  His  in- 
creased salary  will  give  him  less  satisfaction  than  his 
small  one.  When  our  Saviour's  command  is  to  be 
anxious  about  nothing,  what  sort  of  preacher  is  that 
which  is  exhibiting  continually  before  the  people  an 
appearance  and  a  speech  full  of  anxiety  for  a  more 
remunerative  charge?  The  world  is  delighted  to  be 
able  to  point  the  finger  of  scorn  at  a  Christian  minis- 
ter, and  say :  "  There  is  your  godly  preacher.     He  is 


I  So  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

just  as  anxious  to  get  a  larger  salary  as  any  one  of  us. 
He  talks  about  being  dead  to  earthly  things,  while  he 
is  as  fully  alive  to  them  as  any  of  those  he  assumes 
to  teach."  And  nothing  can  prevent  the  world  from 
speaking  in  this  way,  and  speaking  rightfully  too,  but 
a  genuine  conformity  to  our  Saviour's  instructions  on 
the  part  of  the  Christian  minister.  Any  practical  op- 
position to  these  instructions  is  sheer  carnality.  There 
is,  of  course,  with  all  unbelief,  a  readiness  to  support 
itself  with  examples,  and  if  ministerial  examples  can  be 
found  of  restlessness  and  anxiety,  unbelief  is  charm- 
ed, and  writes  their  record  in  huge  letters  and  red  ink. 
It  is  as  bad  for  a  private  Christian  as  for  a  minister  to 
distrust  the  Lord,  but  the  minister's  example  is  far 
more  gainful  to  the  enemy  and  hurtful  to  the  Church. 
On  this  whole  matter  of  money,  the  Church  needs 
a  very  thorough  revision  of  its  practices.  This  is  not  the 
place  to  discuss  the  general  question  of  the  Church's 
relation  to  pecuniary  wealth,  but  we  have  a  right  to 
say  that  while  preachers  are  not  to  be  anxious  or 
money -seeking,  the  people  of  God  are  not  to  be  nig- 
gards toward  those  who  serve  them  in  the  Gospel. 
The  love  of  money  is  a  Jiuman  vice.  It  is  one  of  the 
forms  of  the  great  cancer,  selfishness,  that  belongs  to 
the  diseased  race.  In  its  insidious  character  it  per- 
haps surpasses  all  other  vicious  passions,  and  hence  it 
is  Satan's  most  potent  instrument  to  destroy  souls 
and  to  dwarf  Christians. 


THE  PREACHER'S  RELATION  TO  HIS  WORK.    i8l 

Because  a  minister  is  never  to  be  anxious,  we  can 
not  affirm  that  a  Christian  congregation  is  to  starve 
him.  Because  a  minister  is  to  suffer  martyrdom 
cheerfully  for  Christ,  no  Christian  congregation  need 
suppose  that  it  is  called  upon  to  furnish  the  faggots 
and  the  fire.  The  average  pay  of  Christian  ministers 
in  this  country  is  the  same  with  the  pay  of  the  better 
class  of  manual  day-laborers,  and,  of  course,  much  less 
than  the  pay  of  journeymen  artisans.  Ministers  ought 
to  be  satisfied  with  this,  but  congregations  ought  not 
to  be  satisfied  with  it.  It  should  make  the  churches 
of  the  land  ashamed  in  sackcloth  that  they  give  less  to 
the  support  of  their  ministers  than  they  do  to  their 
house-servants.  It  is  not  from  the  right  of  the  min- 
isters that  I  would  argue  the  point  (ministers  are  not 
to  press  rights  if  they  have  them),  but  from  the  con- 
temptible niggardliness  of  the  people.  If  the  Church 
had  a  just  appreciation  of  the  Lord's  gift  in  ministers, 
it  would  provide  amply  for  those  who  have  given 
their  lives  to  its  edification.  And  yet  we  hear  these 
words  read  in  open  Presbytery  (in  one  branch  of  the 
Church)  as  the  candidate  is  called  to  the  pastoral 
office  :  "And  that  you  maybe  free  from  worldly  cares 
and  avocations,  we  hereby  promise  as  proper  support, 
and  oblige  ourselves  to  pay  to  you  the  sum  of  five 
hundred  dollars  a  year;"  and  to  the  music  of  this 
sweet  welcome  the  wife  and  six  children  follow  the 
new  pastor  to  the  parsonage.    Shame  on  the  churches 


1 8  2  THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

that  have  no  higher  conscience  of  duty  or  apprecia- 
tion of  privilege  !  However  we  may  rebuke  ministers 
for  want  of  proper  quahfications,  wc  would  stop  the 
mouths  of  such  churches  from  complaining,  and  charge 
them  with  utter  unworthiness  to  possess  any  preacher 
at  all. 

In  order  to  prevent  anything  that  looks  like  self- 
seeking  on  the  part  of  preachers,  the  Church  should 
have  an  organized  system  of  bringing  together  unem- 
ployed ministers  and  vacant  pulpits,  by  which,  in  a 
quiet  way,  consistent  with  the  dignity  of  the  Church 
and  the  self-respect  of  ministers,  churches  would  be 
able  to  act  intelligently  without  the  pernicious  custom 
of  candidating.  A  committee  could  be  intrusted  with 
the  delicate  matter — a  committee  of  experienced  and 
judicious  men,  appointed  by  the  chief  ecclesiastical 
body  of  the  district — and  to  this  committee  churches 
should  apply,  and  on  this  committee  ministers  should 
rely.  The  committee  would  keep  a  complete  record 
of  all  unemployed  ministers,  and  exhibit  this  to  every 
applying  church,  giving  information  regarding  each 
name,  and  adding,  if  seen  fit,  their  own  judgment  in 
the  matter.  The  church  could  then  use  all  independ- 
ence in  making  a  selection.  The  objections  to  the 
method  would  be,  first,  the  touchiness  of  the  churches 
that  do  not  wish  any  outside  interference  with  their 
affairs — a  feeling  which  is  proper  only  when  the  inter- 
ference is  ofificious  ;  and,  secondly,  the  place-hunting 


THE  PREACHER'S  RELATION  TO  HIS  WORK.   183 

spirit  of  the  minister,  which  is  never  proper.  The 
minister  should  act  Hke  a  modest  girl  and  let  all  the 
adv^ances  come  from  the  other  side. 

A  question  is  likely  to  be  asked  just  here.  It  is, 
*'  What  is  a  preacher  of  mature  years  to  do  when  he 
finds  himself  deprived  of  a  charge?"  He  has  for 
twenty  or  thirty  years  been  accustomed  to  preach  and 
administer  his  parochial  work,  and  for  this  only  is  he 
fitted.  He  can  not  obtain  a  clerkship,  nor  can  he 
perform  manual  labor  in  any  competition  with  the 
many  who  are  ever  ready  to  fill  the  offered  situa- 
tions. He  has,  perhaps,  a  family  dependent  upon 
him,  and  it  is  his  duty  to  support  them.  How  is  he 
to  do  it  ?  Must  he  not  perforce  become  a  beggar  for 
a  position  ?  Must  he  not  seek  a  charge  with  the  plea 
that  he  must  have  bread  ? 

This  is  one  of  the  most  trying  and  difficult  cases 
involved  in  this  subject,  and  the  answer  can  not  be  a 
simple  one.  The  case  will  have  varying  aspects,  and 
the  answer  must  be  modified  accordingly.  If  the 
man  is  superannuated  or  disabled  by  sickness,  it  is  as 
much  his  congregation's  duty  to  provide  for  him  as 
for  a  family  to  provide  for  an  invalid  father.  A  con- 
gregation that  would  not  provide  for  a  disabled  pas- 
tor, who  had  faithfully  served  them  in  his  health, 
might  profitably  receive  a  missionary  from  the  Zulus. 
Perhaps  also  it  might  cast  a  doubt  on  the  pastor's 
faithfulness,  if  the  church  should  exhibit,  after  all  his 


1 8  4        THE  CHRIS  TIA  X  PRE  A  CHER. 

labors,  such  a  heathenish  cruelty.  The  relation  of 
pastor  and  flock  is  a  spiritual  one,  and  the  tie  is  sa- 
credly tender.  We  are  not  to  take  a  commercial  view 
of  it.  The  conduct  of  ministers  in  going  about  from 
place  to  place  to  be  "  hired,"  ever  ready  to  change,  so 
as  to  use  old  sermons,  has  done  very  much  to  give 
the  commercial  character  to  the  relation  of  a  preacher, 
and  men  are  wont  in  some  places  to  treat  a  preacher 
as  if  he  were  a  business  clerk,  to  be  hired  at  the 
smallest  market  price,  and  to  be  dismissed  at  any  time 
without  ceremony.  No  church  so  acting  can  have  an 
exalted  spiritual  life.  It  is  nothing  but  a  cold  acad- 
emy or  lyceum,  without  even  the  finer  feelings  that 
those  names  historically  imply.  When  a  church  rec- 
ognizes in  its  preacher  a  man  of  God,  a  messenger  of 
the  truth,  an  ambassador  for  Christ,  it  will  dismiss  all 
ideas  of  trade  in  the  solemn  contract  it  has  entered  into 
with  him  and  be  governed  in  all  its  conduct  toward 
him  by  considerations  of  a  spiritual  order.  Pastor 
and  people  should  so  act  in  harmony  that  no  pecu- 
niary question  should  ever  be  allowed  to  arise,  and 
when  the  faithful  preacher  is  disabled,  the  Church  will 
naturally  see  that  his  wants  are  met. 

But  if  a  preacher  is  deprived  of  a  charge  by  his  own 
act,  in  his  attempt  to  get  a  larger  salary  or  in  a  sim- 
ple desire  for  a  new  field  of  labor,  he  has  assumed  a 
false  position,  and  has  only  himself  to  blame  that  he 
has  become  a  clerical  waif.     He  has  shown  by  his 


THE  PREACHER'S  RELATIOX  TO  HIS  IVOR  A'.    185 

conduct  that  he  lacks  the  due  sense  of  his  function 
and  the  faith  which  he  should  exhibit  to  the  church. 
If,  however,  the  separation  is  made  by  the  church 
without  other  cause  than  the  desire  for  change,  and 
so  the  case  takes  on  its  saddest  form,  the  sympathies 
of  all  will  justly  be  excited  for  one  who  thus  becomes 
a  victim  to  the  cruel  worldliness  of  a  church.  Wc  can 
not  but  believe  that  in  every  such  case,  however,  the 
man  of  faith  will  have  his  way  made  both  plain  and 
smooth,  and,  as  God's  faithful  servant,  will  find  the 
cake  baken  on  the  coals  by  the  angel. 

Too  often  a  preacher's  own  faults  are  the  cause  of 
his  removal  from  a  charge.  He  grows  indolent  and 
neglects  his  study,  or  he  gives  his  time  to  other  inter- 
ests than  those  of  the  church,  or  he  manifests  a  disa- 
greeable temper  and  disposition  toward  his  people, 
or  he  fails  to  use  the  opportunities  of  his  position  for 
the  growth  of  the  church.  A  church  will  often 
through  its  officers  let  a  minister  know  that  he  is 
derelict,  and  the  kind  interference  is  sometimes  re- 
sented, when  it  should  be  gratefully  received  and 
practically  pondered.  A.  church  must  conserve  its 
high  spiritual  interests,  and  if  a  pastor  stand  in  the 
way  of  these,  he  must  be  cut  off,  and  in  his  exile  he 
can  scarcely  claim  a  right  to  criticise  the  conduct  of 
churches  or  charge  upon  them  the  helplessness  of  ai^i 
unemployed  ministry.  We  believe  that  wherever  ai 
preacher  is  wholly  given  to  the  Lord's  cause,  and  la- 


1 86  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

bors  with  conscientious  diligence  for  the  edification 
of  the  church,  he  will  so  bind  a  church  to  him  in  af- 
fection and  respect,  that  they  would  as  soon  think  of 
dissolving  the  church  itself  as  of  dissolving  the  rela- 
tion subsisting  between  pastor  and  people.  The  Lord 
does  make  provision  for  His  ministers,  whatever  ap- 
parent examples  to  the  contrary  may  be  offered. 

A  Christian  minister  should  never  go  for  counsel  to 
a  worldly  man.  The  rich  man  in  the  congregation,  or 
the  eminent  lawyer,  if  he  be  not  gifted  with  the  spir- 
itual discernment  of  a  child  of  God,  is  not  the  man  to 
give  advice  to  a  minister  of  Jesus  Christ.  Whatever 
may  be  the  difficulties  of  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel,  he 
degrades  his  office  when  he  consults  a  worldly  mind 
regarding  its  discharge.  This  appealing  to  a  godless 
world  for  its  support  or  its  criticism  is  all  too  common. 
We  thus  let  the  hoofs  of  cattle  in  to  tread  the  courts 
of  the  Lord.  The  affairs  of  Christ's  kingdom  can  not 
be  understood  or  appreciated  by  the  men  of  the 
world,  and  if  they  meddle  with  them,  it  is  to  defile 
them.  It  is  a  profanity  to  seek  the  approbation  of  an 
unsanctified  judgment  in  the  matters  of  Christ's  spir- 
itual Church,  and  the  preacher  who  does  this  forgets 
the  indignant  exclamation  of  Paul,  "  Do  I  seek  to 
please  men?  For  if  I  yet  pleased  men,  I  should  not 
be  the  servant  of  Christ," 

But  with  men  of  spiritual  discernment  his  inter- 
course should   be  unrestrained,  and  the  counsel  of 


THE  PREACHER- S  RELAriO.V  TO  HIS   WORK,    jgj 

such  he  should  prize.  The  officers  of  the  church 
should  never  be  men  of  straw,  while  the  minister 
monopolizes  the  management.  However  wise  he 
may  be,  he  needs  the  wisdom  of  others  to  correct  his 
errors,  and  in  the  multitude  of  counselors  there  is 
safety.  The  church's  life  is  healthier  the  more  it 
avails  itself  of  its  united  wisdom,  and  the  pastor's  po- 
sition is  rather  that  of  a  moderator  and  president 
than  that  of  an  autocrat. 

A  wise  pastor  will  not  only  have  many  counselors 
of  the  right  sort,  but  will  on  the  same  principle  en- 
deavor to  evoke  all  the  talent  of  the  church  in  active 
exercise  for  the  general  welfare.  He  will  have  a 
genius  for  finding  something  for  every  one  to  do,  a 
class  to  teach,  a  poor  family  to  visit,  a  sick-bed  to 
watch  beside,  a  straying  member  to  restore  in  the 
spirit  of  meekness,  a  young  man  to  advise,  a  sewing 
circle  to  organize  or  attend,  a  prayer-meeting  to  es- 
tablish in  a  destitute  neighborhood,  a  desponding 
soul  to  encourage,  or  some  lonely  one  to  cheer  w^ith 
Christian  attention.  Indeed  it  may  be  considered 
one  of  the  high  and  holy  arts  of  a  pastor  thus  to 
make  his  church  a  hive  of  spiritual  industry.  His  own 
duties  will  be  made  far  more  delightful  and  far  more 
successful,  when  he  is  the  leader  of  such  an  active 
host.  Among  active  workers  carping  criticism,  petty 
jealousies,  and  spiritual  restlessness  have  no  place,  and 
a  minister  who  lives  in,  with,  and  for  his  people  can 


1 88  THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 

always  apply  this  panacea  to  ecclesiastical  evils.  Too 
often  the  preacher  forgets  to  excite  this  co-operation, 
and  thinks  that  the  whole  round  of  parish  duties  be- 
gins and  ends  with  himself.  There  are  many  earnest 
souls  that  only  need  guidance  to  find  a  field  of  Chris- 
tian labor,  but  who,  through  ignorance  of  the  way, 
practice  an  enforced  idleness ;  and  there  are  others 
with  talents  purposely  laid  away  in  a  napkin,  who 
ought  both  to  be  stirred  up  to  a  sense  of  responsi- 
bility, and  to  be  offered  the  fitting  opportunity. 

The  notion  that  a  church  is  a  collection  of  people 
and  a  preacher  preaching  to  them  is  certainly  very 
defective,  and  shows  but  a  superficial  acquaintance 
with  the  spiritual  polity  and  principles  of  the  Church. 
The  picture  of  a  preacher  preaching  to  the  heathen 
is  made  to  serve  for  the  idea  of  a  church.  The  sphere 
of  the  evangelist  and  that  of  the  pastor  are  very  dif- 
ferent, and  it  is  the  latter  with  whom  we  have  chiefly 
to  deal  in  these  lectures,  as  being  the  '*  preacher  "  of 
our  ordinary  language.  The  pastor  is  an  integral  part 
of  an  organism.  He  is  to  fit  into  many  portions  and 
work  in  harmony  with  these.  Isolated  working  on  his 
part  would  indicate  paralysis  and  disease  of  the  organ- 
ism, from  which  any  abnormal  growth  might  be  ex- 
pected to  arise.  The  pastor  is  to  teach,  'tis  true,  but 
he  is  to  teach  teachers,  he  is  to  give  instruction  in  ac- 
tivit}^,  he  is  to  lead  an  army  against  the  enemy  and 
not  2.0  alone  to  the  combat.     He  is  so  to  consolidate 


THE  PREACHER'S  RELATION  TO  HIS  WORK.   189 

his  people,  so  to  give  them  a  united  and  consistent 
Hfe,  that  their  hfe  will  not  depend  on  him.  If  he 
should  be  taken  away,  the  church  will  lose  Jiivi,  but 
not  itself.  The  church  that  is  gathered  simply  as  the 
following  of  one  man,  is  not  in  a  sound  condition. 
Only  one  side  of  its  church  life  is  developed.  The 
side  of  church  activity  is  unsound.  Whatever  activity 
there  is,  does  not  proceed  from  its  own  life,  but  from 
that  of  the  pastor.  The  cultivation  of  this  independ- 
ent activity  of  the  church,  so  far  from  separating  pas- 
tor from  people,  always  binds  them  together  with  the 
closest  bonds.  It  is  the  pastor  that  does  everything 
himself,  who  fails  to  attach  himself  to  his  flock. 
They  feel  they  can  let  him  go  at  any  time  without 
harming  anything,  for  another  will  come  and  assume 
the  burden.  No  joint  work  has  cemented  the  inti- 
mate affection  of  the  two  parties.  It  is,  therefore, 
every  way  for  a  pastor's  interest  (if  we  use  no  higher 
motive)  to  stir  up  into  exercise  every  gift  that  his 
people  possess,  and  make  the  church  a  full-charged 
battery  of  blessings  to  the  neighborhood.  I  need  not 
add  that  this  fellowship  in  work  brings  out  the  most 
charming  experiences  of  the  Christian  life,  and  that  it 
serves  to  relieve  the  ministry  of  one-half  its  burdens. 
In  bringing  the  people  to  this  energetic  condition, 
the  preacher  is  to  depend  under  God  on  his  faithful 
expositions  of  duty  and  privilege  from  the  Word  of 
God.    When  the  people  understand  that  God's  Word 


I  go        THE  CHRIS  TIA  N  PRE  A  CHER. 

would  make  the  minister  not  a  proxy,  but  a  guide, 
they  will  accommodate  themselves  to  the  new-found 
truth,  and  be  found  saying  each  to  God  through  the 
minister,  "  What  wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do  ?  "  Then 
will  appear  the  need  of  executive  ability  and  practical 
wisdom,  rightly  to  answer  this  question,  and  to  be  the 
Lord's  steward  in  distributing  the  work. 

The  question  of  public  services  in  their  number  and 
character  has  often  arisen  of  late  years.  There  has 
been  a  growing  dissatisfaction  with  the  stereotyped 
two  services  of  a  Sunday,  and  various  expedients 
have  been  suggested  as  a  substitute.  I  am  sorry  to 
see  that  in  some  quarters  a  single  public  service  each 
Sabbath  is  advocated. 

The  Sabbath  rests  on  the  fourth  commandment. 
Take  away  that  foundation,  and  there  is  no  Sabbath, 
except  the  vague  and  visionary  one  derived  from  tra- 
dition and  physiology.  Those  "  ten  words  "  which 
God  wrote  with  His  own  finger  (whatever  that  may 
mean — it  certainly  is  something  supernatural),  and  or- 
dered to  be  preserved  as  the  central  object  of  care  in 
the  innermost  sanctuary,  could  not  have  been  for  the 
Israelites  as  a  nation,  but  as  tJic  Church  of  God. 
That  Church  is  one  down  to  the  judgment  day. 
These  "  ten  words  "  are  not  to  be  abrogated,  but 
maintained,  not  always  to  be  shut  up  in  an  ark  {that 
would  do  only  when  the  Church  was  national  and 
local),  but  hidden  in  the  hearts  of  God's  people.    The 


THE  PREACHER'S  RELATION  TO  HIS  WORK,   iqi 

Egypt  or  house  of  bondage  from  which  the  Church 
escaped  is  mentioned  in  those  ''  ten  words,"  or  rather 
in  their  preface,  because  the  Church's  history  is  one 
from  then  tih  now,  and  because  also  Egypt  is  repre- 
sented in  the  inspired  volume  as  the  type  of  that 
worldly  state  out  of  which  every  renewed  soul  is  de- 
livered by  divine  grace.  "  The  land  which  the  Lord 
thy  God  shall  give  thee,"  is  declared  by  the  apostle 
Paul  in  the  fact  of  its  quotation  by  him  to  have  a 
far  more  extensive  reference  than  to  the  land  of 
Canaan  which  Israel  should  possess.  So  that  all  the 
arguments  commonly  used  to  relegate  the  decalogue 
to  the  category  of  old  and  obsolete  Jewish  statutes  are 
valueless.  Now  we  have  the  command  touching  the 
Sabbath  occupying  the  very  center  of  the  sacred  doc- 
ument, and  containing  one-third  of  the  matter  of  the 
whole.  Is  there  no  meaning  in  this?  Are  we  to 
brush  all  this  away  with  the  broom  of  the  "  new  criti- 
cism ? "  Let  us  adhere  to  the  Word,  and  beware  of 
false  lights. 

The  Sabbath  is  a  stop-day.  The  Hebrew  word 
means  "  rest  "  in  the  sense  of  ceasing,  not  "  rest  "  in 
the  sense  of  "  lying  down  at  ease."  The  one  word  is 
SJiavatJi,  the  other  is  NuacJi.  It  is  the  day  for  stop- 
ping ordinary  labor,  for  ceasing  the  earthly  work,  as 
God  ceased  His  earthly  work,  according  to  a  just 
analogy  between  things  divine  and  human. 

Now,  this  stop-day  suggests  to  the  godly  mind,  as 


192 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


the  proper  antithesis  of  earthly  work,  heavenly  work. 
The  holy  convocation  is  a  conspicuous  feature.  The 
study  of  divine  revelation  is  another.  The  two  com- 
mingled probably  formed  from  the  beginning  a  large 
part  of  the  Sabbath  occupation.  Our  experience 
seems  to  teach  that  the  more  of  this  method  of 
spending  the  Sabbath  is  adopted,  the  better  for  the 
people  in  keeping  them  from  a  vain,  wandering  abuse 
of  the  holy  time.  And  yet  we  can  not  ignore  the 
manifest  dislike  to  the  old  arrangement  in  our 
Churches,  which  dislike  is  witnessed  by  the  scant  at- 
tendance upon  the  second  service  of  the  Lord's  day. 
My  own  belief  is  that  the  dissatisfaction  is  created  by 
two  causes  :  first,  a  generally  diffused  doubt  as  regards 
the  obligation  of  the  Sabbath,  a  doubt  that  has  been 
strengthened  by  many  ministers,  who  have  confound- 
ed the  Sabbath  with  the  Jewish  ritual ;  and  secondly, 
the  baldness  and  monotony  of  our  public  services. 
With  regard  to  the  former  doctrinal  point,  I  will  not 
here  say  anything  further,  except  to  call  the  atten- 
tion of  my  brethren  who  are  making  light  of  the  Sab- 
bath to  the  fact,  that  the  godly  men  and  women  of 
Europe  are  making  great  efforts  to  recover  their  lost 
Sabbath,  and  that  a  day  of  rest  from  labor  in  order 
to  cultivate  knowledge  and  life  Godward  is  in  perfect 
harmony  with  all  the  principles  of  the  divine  govern- 
ment. The  Church,  we  should  reason  d  priori,  must 
have  its  day  of  assembly. 


THE  PREACHER'S  RELATION  TO  HIS  WORK.    193 

As  to  the  second  point,  there  seems  room  for  a  ref- 
ormation. There  are  two  parts  of  public  service,  to 
wit,  worship  and  instruction.  In  each  department  we 
are  at  fault.  The  worship  in  most  of  the  non-prelat- 
ical  churches  is  vocal  only  in  the  preacher,  except  in 
the  hymns,  and  even  these  are  stolen  away  from  the 
people  in  many  cases  by  four  living  creatures,  who, 
instead  of  leading,  monopolize  the  heavenly  song. 
The  hymns  should  certainly  be  secured  for  the  con- 
gregation, even  at  the  sacrifice  of  a  nightingale  soprano. 
The  worship  should  be  expressed  by  all,  as  far  as  its 
character  will  permit  general  expression.  Neither 
preacher  nor  choir  is  commissioned  to  worship  for  a. 
congregation,  and  silent  worship  is  greatly  benefited 
by  being  interwoven  with  audible  worship,  in  arousing 
and  enlivening  the  worshiper.  But  not  only  can  we 
profitably  secure  the  hymns  for  the  people,  but  there 
is  no  reason  why  the  grand  Psalms  of  David  may 
not  be  responsively  read  by  preacher  and  people  in 
the  very  manner  that  some  of  them  were  evidently 
designed  to  be  used,  and  if  we  add  the  joint  voic- 
ing of  the  Lord's  Prayer  by  preacher  and  people,  and 
the  "  Amen  "  responses  of  the  congregation,  we  shall 
have  refreshing  elements  of  worship  in  our  services 
that  will  relieve  them  of  their  present  heavy  charac- 
ter. In  the  other  part  of  service,  instruction,  there  is 
again  a  monotony  hard  to  bear.  On  two  occasions  in 
the  same  day  the  preacher  gives  his  people  a  set  dis- 
9 


194 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER. 


course.  They  have  the  same  general  type,  are  run  in 
the  same  mould,  and  yet  have  no  connection  in 
specific  subject.  The  general  style  grows  tedious, 
and  the  difference  in  subjects  confuses.  If  the  second 
sermon  were  illustrative  of  the  former,  the  case  would 
be  better,  but  even  better  than  that  would  be  the  to- 
tal change  in  the  general  style  of  the  preacher's  part 
in  the  second  service.  He  has  given  a  sermon,  a  set 
discourse,  in  the  morning.  Let  that  suffice.  And 
now  when  the  people  come  together  for  the  second 
service  of  the  Lord's  day,  let  the  preacher  expound 
the  Scriptures  carefully  in  course  and  in  a  familiar 
way,  with  map  and  blackboard,  showing  the  people 
practically  how  to  study  and  search  the  Scriptures, 
and  giving  them  a  renewed  relish  for  this  most  im- 
portant duty. 

By  this  variety  in  the  services,  they  will  prove  at- 
tractive, and  that  from  no  false  or  worldly  lure,  and 
the  two  convocations  of  the  Lord's  day  (we  believe) 
may  be  successfully  sustained. 

My  dear  young  brethren :  In  the  seven  lectures  I 
have  had  the  honor  to  address  to  you,  I  have  put  be- 
fore you  in  a  very  plain  way  the  points  of  character 
and  conduct,  that  to  my  observation  have  appeared 
most  important  in  one  set  apart  by  the  Lord  Jesus  to 
bear  the  standard  of  His  saving  truth  among  men. 
In  concluding  the  course,  let  me  express  to  you  my 


THE  PREACHER'S  RELATION  TO  HIS  WORK.    195 

hearty  congratulations  that  God  has  led  you  to  this 
highest  plane  of  human  life  and  privilege ;  that,  de- 
nying all  the  stronger  and  lower  tendencies  of  your 
nature  to  the  acquisition  of  wealth  and  carnal  ease, 
you  are  seeking  to  spend  your  earthly  life  in  glorifying 
God  through  the  service  of  His  Gospel,  and  that  you 
look  for  rewards  that  have  no  meaning  nor  measure 
to  the  world. 

Be  strong  and  of  a  good  courage.  Keep  your  life 
in  that  spiritual  sphere,  where  your  hopes  and  encour- 
agements will  be  ever  before  your  eyes,  and  where 
consequently  weariness  and  despondency  will  be  never 
known.  Walk  closely  with  God,  so  that  the  guidance 
and  protection  of  His  holy  arm  may  be  ever  felt. 
Avoid  and  despise  the  maxims  and  methods  of  the 
world,  while  you  fill  your  soul  with  the  principles  and 
power  of  the  sacred  Word,  and  then,  when  the  short 
campaign  for  Christ's  truth  is  over  and  you  are  sum- 
moned to  the  triumph  and  the  home  eternal,  you  will 
enter  the  heavenly  gates  neither  unknown  nor  alone, 
your  way  heralded  by  those  angelic  hosts  who  have 
been  your  unseen  helpers  through  your  earthly  labors, 
and  your  train  composed  of  those  ransomed  souls 
who  received  from  your  lips  the  message  that  enfran- 
chised them. 


THE 

AGES    BEFORE    MOSES, 

A   SERIES  OF  LECTURES 


ON 


THE    BOOK    OF    GENESIS. 

Bv  JOHN  MONRO  GIBSON,  D.D., 

PASTOR   OF  THE   SECOND    PRESBYTERIAN   CHURCH,   CHICAGO 


THESE  lectures  on  the  book  of  Genesis,  delivered  during  tlin 
preseut  "Winter,  on  Sunday  afternoon)^,  in  Farwell  Hall, 
Chicago,  before  large  audiences,  are  designed  to  com- 
bine tlie  advantages  of  continuous  exposition  with  those 
of  topical  presentation  of  the  truth.  It  is  not  a  series 
of  selected  themes  from  the  book,  but  an  attempt  to  present  the 
main  teachings  of  that  intcre-?tiug  part  of  Scripture  in  the  order 
and  proportion  assigned  them  in  the  "Word  of  God.  The  elements 
of  time  and  historical  perspective  have  l)een  carefully  kept  in  view  in 
the  arrangement  of  the  matter  and  the  grouping  of  the  facts  ;  and  it  is 
liojicd  that  this  mode  of  treatment  will  materially  aid  the  Bible  stu- 
dent in  obtaining  compi-ebensive  views  of  truth,  and  recognizing  the 
unit}'  and  progress  of  the  Divine  "thoughts  and  waj^s  "  in  the  salva- 
tion of  the  world  from  sin.  "While  the  main  object  has  been  the 
presentation  of  the  positive  spiritual  teaching  of  the  book,  no  oppor- 
tunity has  been  intentionally  missed  of  dealing  with  current  olijec- 
tious  and  difficulties. 

"  The  Ages  before  Moses,"  of  which  the  lectures  treat,  are  the  geo- 
logic age,  the  Eden  times,  the  Antediluvian  age,  the  post-diluvian  age 
between  Noah  and  Abraham,  and  the  Patriarchal  Era.  The  relations 
between  the  truth  unfolded  in  these  early  ages  and  the  later  revela- 
tions, especially  those  of  the  New  Testament,  have  been  kept  in  view 
throughout,  so'that  by  the  study  of  Genesis  as  much  light  a&  possible 
might  be  thrown  upon  the  rest  of  the  Bible. 

The  first  two  lectures  of  the  course,  "  Concerning  Difficulties  and 
Objections,"  and  "  The  Perspective  of  the  Bible,"  deal  with  general 
principles  of  very  great  importance  iu  the  study  and  use  of  the  Bible. 

One  handsome  Volume,  12mo,  cloth,  258  pages.    Price,  SI. 25. 

May  be  obtained  at  the  bookstores  ;  or,  will  be  sent  by  mail, 
post-paid,  on  receipt  ^$1.25,  by  the  publishers, 

ANSO;^   D.  F.  RANDOLPH   &   CO.,  900  BROADWAY, 
Cor.  20TH  Street,  New  York. 


TEE  PILQRIJli  PSALJliS. 

EXPOSITION  OF  THE  SONGS  OF  DEGREES. 

BY  THE 
WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION   BY 

KEV.  MAEVIN  K.  VINCENT,  D.D,,  NEW  YORK. 


A  rare  and  precious  book.  The  exposition  is  fully  abreast  of  the  times, 
accurate  and  clear,  with  no  parade  of  critical  learning.  It  is  scholarly  with- 
out pedantry,  spiritual  without  cant,  and  delightful  without  cloyiuo;.  Tha 
Pealms  are  given  in  an  excellent  and  elegant  translation,  which,  however,  is 
rather  after  the  author's  own  spirit,  than  i.i  a  catholic  and  c  I'orlcss  style, 
and  is  rather  the  better  for  it.  The  sense  of  the  authorized  version  is  never 
departed  from  without  good  reason.  The  style  of  writing  is  especially 
charming.— &  8.  Times. 

The  Psalms  (120  to  134)  which  are  known  to  us  as  "  Sonsrs  of  Degrees  " 
form  as  it  were  a  little  book  by  themselves.  The  author  regards  them,  with 
most  commentators,  as  songs  sung  by  the  Hebrews  in  their  journeys  to 
Jerusalem  to  attend  the  feasts.  If  the  author's  congiegation  did  not  listen 
with  delight  to  these  charming  expositions  it  must  be  a  congregation  of 
strange  dullness.  Each  one  is  the  work  of  an  artist,  and  contains  a  transla- 
tion of  the  Psalm,  a  sketch  of  the  time  and  the  scenes  in  which  it  was  probably 
composed,  a  sympathetic  and  skillful  exposition,  and  an  explanation  of  its 
fitness,  etc.  The  style  is  not  only  beautiful,  but  delicately  adapted  to  the 
spirit  of  the  songs  with  which  the  author  is  dealing.  We  heartily  commend 
the  volume.— TAs  Watchman  (Boston). 

Mr.  Cox's  work  will,  we  venture  to  say,  open  up  to  many  of  his  readers, 
truths  which  they  never  saw  before.  He  gives  the  results  of  a  sound  scholar- 
ship, and  the  fruits  of  a  rich  imagination,  one  which  has  ripened  into,''»"er- 
ence.    Wc  commend  this  book  to  all.— 2'A«  Churchman  (N.  Y.) 

To  most  persons,  exposition  is  as  dry  as  a  dictionary,  but  we  venture  to 
say  that  whoever  will  give  one  or  two  of  his  best  Sunday  hours  to  the  *'  Pilgrim 
Psalms,"  will  find  it  one  of  the  juiciest  he  ever  read,  and  as  sweet  a  one  too. 
The  author  throws  a  wonderful  light  on  the  "  Songs,"  but  better  than  this  is 
the  light  which  he  makes  them  throw  on  us  and  our  \\m^&.— Religious  Ueraid 
(Richmond). 

Full  of  the  treasures  of  Christian  experience.— C^mWan  at  Work. 

Can  not  fail  to  be  of  service  to  every  thoughtful  and  devout  reader,— 
Congregation  alist. 

Scholarly  and  at  the  same  time  popular. ....  Even  the  titles  which  the 
author  places  over  the  chapters  are  at  once  beautiful  and  appropriate— thus, 
"The.Soug  of  the  Start,"  "The  Song  of  the  Arrival,"  "The  Song  of  the 
Home,"  followed  by  "  The  Song  of  the  Farm." — Christian  Intelligencer. 

12 mo.  Cloth.     $1 

ANSON  D.  F.  RANDOLPH  &  COMPANY, 

900  Broadway,  Cor.  20th  St.,  New  York. 

May  be  obtained  of  the  Booksellers,  or  will  be  sent  by  mail,  post-paid,  3ii 
eccipt  of  the  price,  by  the  Publishers. 


"  Suriassi'm-ly  useful,  sententious  and  sensible.  Our  oJ>inion  of  it  is  very  high.  Buy 
the  work  at  once^^ — C.  Ii.  Spiirgcon. 

^^  Furnishes  in  a  single  commentary  the  characteristics  of  several ^  with  features  net 
to  be  met  with  in  any  one ^ — Presbyterian  Herald. 

''  Most  po/>ular  and  entertaining  commentary  with  which  we  are  AcguainUd,"— 
N.  y.  Observer. 


THE 


iBLiCAL  Museum 

CONSISTDia  OP 

Notes— Critical,  Homiletic,  and  Illastrative— on  the  Holy  Scriptures,  forming  a  Complete 
Commentary  on  an  Original  Plan,  especially  designed  for  Ministers,  Bible  Students, 
and  fcJunday-school  Teachers.  By  James  Compeb  Gray,  Author  of '■^ The  Class  and 
The  Desk  f' 

NEW   TESTAMENT    DIVISION. 

NOW  COMPLETE. 
Volume  I,  Matthew  and  Mark. 

Volume  II.  Luke  and  Johti. 

Volume  III.  Acts  and  Romans. 

Volume  IV.  Corinthians  to  Philemon. 

Volume  V.  Hebrews  to  Revelation 

with  Copious  Index  to  the  s  Volumes, 


OLD    TESTAMENT    DIVISION. 

(To  be  completed  in  eight  volumes.} 
VOLUMES  NOW  READY. 
Volume  I,  Genesis  and  Exodus. 

Volume  II.  Leviticus.  Numbers^  and  Deuteronomy. 
Volume  III.  Joshua  to  Samuel. 

Volume  IV.  Kings  and  Chronicles. 
Volume  V.  Ezra  to  Job, 

The  value  of  this  Work  to  Ministers  and  Sunday-School  Teachers  consists  in  this,  that 
besides  explanatory  and  critical  notes,  marginal  references,  erplanations  and  derivations 
of  words,  literary,  chronolo^cal,  and  analytical  notes,  etc.,  etc..  each  veri^e  or  group  of 
verses  is  accompanied  bt  suitable  Anecdote  or  Iilostration.  Thus  a  most  complete 
commentary  is  presented  to  the  reader,  as  well  as  the  most  perfect  Museum  of  Aiiecdole 
and  Illustration  that  has  ever  yet  been  published,  with  additional  advantage  of  the  who'o 
of  the  material  beiug  so  arranged  as  to  be  instantly  accessible  under  the  passage  of  Scrip 
ture  referred  to. 

12ino,  cloth,  384  pp-  each,  $135  per  Volume, 

(sold  sepakately). 
Either  or  all  of  the  Volumes  sent  by  mail  or  express,  prepaid,  on  re- 
ceipt of  price  by  the  publishers, 

ANSON  D.  F  EiNDOLPH  &  Co.,  900  Broadway,  New  York 


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